Four guilty after shotgun fired into funeral crowd in drive-by attack

Four men have been found guilty of roles in a drive-by shooting of four women and two young girls outside a church as they left a funeral service.

Tyrell Lacroix, 23, Jashy Perch, 20, Jordan Walters, 24 and Alrico Nelson-Martin, 20, were involved in the gang attack that left a girl and a woman with life-changing injuries.

The victims – aged between 11 and 54 – were struck with pellets from a sawn-off shotgun fired into a crowd of people outside a funeral at St Aloysius Church in Euston, north London, last January.

One of the girls was left with a metal pellet embedded in a muscle near her heart, which will affect her health for the rest of her life, and one of the women was left with serious injuries that hampered her hearing and balance.

Detective Inspector Darren Jones, from the Metropolitan Police‘s Trident gang team, said after the conviction today: “These dangerous men brought unimaginable fear and horror to the streets of London.

“They cowardly shot at mourners as they gathered outside a church.

“The innocent women and girls who were injured will have to deal with the impact of that for the rest of their lives.”

At the time of the shooting, the victims had been at a memorial service for Sara Sanchez, 20, and her mother, Fresia Calderon, 50, who died in November 2022.

Ms Sanchez had suffered from leukaemia for three years. Her mother also died suddenly from a rare blood clot on arrival at Heathrow Airport from Colombia.

The planning of the attack began in November 2022 when Lacroix found the black Toyota car that would be used in the shooting, Scotland Yard said.

Lacroix, of St John’s Wood, was part of a gang in north London and believed members of a rival gang would be at the memorial service.

Nelson-Martin supplied the sawn-off shotgun to the other three who were in the vehicle at the time of the shooting on 14 January 2023.

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CCTV showed Walters, Lacroix and Perch circling the church in a car before one of them opened fire into the crowd, detectives said.

Mourners had turned to look at doves being released from the church steps as the gunshots rang out.

Queen Macaulay, who was visiting a friend in the area at the time of the attack, said she heard a gunshot and saw people running.

She told Sky News: “Everyone was running… it was quite chaotic.”

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At Kingston Crown Court today, all four defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to wound with intent to cause serious harm, the Met Police said.

Nelson-Martin, of Willesden Green, north London, was also convicted of possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger life.

Officers are still hunting a fourth man who was in the car at the time of the shooting, police said.

All four men will be sentenced at the same court on 12 April.

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