Warrant provides details from witness and surveillance video
At midafternoon on Friday, May 9, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office announced that the 33-year-old suspect in an investigation involving a May 1 shooting in the 2500 block of Colson Avenue in Sarasota had been arrested.
Trae B. Ward, 33, of 2515 24th St. in Sarasota, was confined in the Sarasota County Jail on May 8, a news release said. He has been charged with Homicide: Murder Dangerous Depraved without Premeditation, the release added.
Ward is being held without bond, his booking details showed.
A record of his first appearance in court, on May 9, cited several factors related to the decision regarding bond, The Sarasota News Leader found. Among them, a pretrial services case officer noted the charge in the Colson Avenue case, Ward’s criminal history and “History of drug abuse.” Circuit Judge Hunter Carroll signed the document that shows no bond would be set.
As the News Leader reported last week, Ward has a long record of citations involving traffic cases, but very few criminal charges. Among the latter, in January 2012, Ward was charged with three felony counts: Possession of Concealed Firearm, Possession of Ammunition by Convicted Felon, and Possession of Firearm by Convicted Felon.
Altogether, the total number of cases involving Ward added up to 75 as of May 15, as noted in the records maintained by Karen Rushing, the Sarasota County clerk of the Circuit Court and county comptroller, and her staff.
Ward’s arraignment has been scheduled for June 6.
The arrest warrant for Ward, which was filed with the Clerk’s Office on May 2, did not include the actual address of the May 1 incident; that was redacted. However, the document notes that the site was a single-family residence and that the time of the incident was 6:45 p.m.
As the Sheriff’s Office previously reported, that warrant explains that, when deputies and paramedics with the Sarasota County Fire Department arrived on the scene, they found “a Black male lying in the front yard with a gunshot wound to the chest.” A person later identified him to the deputies as Reginald Graves, 45.
Although the paramedics “provided life-saving aid and transported the victim to Sarasota Memorial Hospital,” the warrant continues, Graves was pronounced dead at 7:54 p.m.
Subsequently, the warrant says, detectives interviewed Louvessa Stephens, whose relationship to the victim was redacted.
(A News Leader online search found Stephens listed as Graves’ mother in his obituary on the website of Chandler’s Funeral Home in Sarasota.)
Stephens told the detectives that Ward and Graves had had an altercation within a vehicle, the warrant indicates. (Part of that sentence was redacted, as well.) Then she reported that she was outside when Ward “ran toward Graves, drew a handgun from his waistband, and attempted to shoot [Graves].”
She intervened, Stephens told the detectives, “stepping between the two.”
Graves then “retreated into the home,” with Ward following him, Stephens said, as noted in the warrant.
“Moments later,” the warrant continues, Stephens heard someone — whose name was redacted — “pleading for his life, followed by two gunshots. “She entered the residence and was shoved aside by [Ward] as he fled,” the warrant adds.
Graves was alert at that time, Stephens told the detectives; he said, “ ‘[Ward] shot me in the heart …’ ”
In a review of the initial 911 call placed from the scene, the warrant says, the detectives learned that Graves made that call.
Further, the detectives were able to obtain surveillance video from a nearby residence with a direct view of the scene of the incident, the warrant notes. That video showed Ward approaching Graves with a firearm, the warrant adds. “A brief confrontation occurs,” the warrant continues, “during which [Graves] is heard saying, ‘Trae’ twice. The video captures Stephens stepping between the two before [Graves] retreats inside the residence with [Ward] following,” the warrant says.
Shortly after Stephens was seen entering the residence, the warrant continues, a single gunshot could be heard and then Ward can be seen “exiting the home.”
“A second camera angle captures the victim exiting the front door while on the phone with 911 before collapsing in the front yard,” the warrant says.
The May 9 news release from the Sheriff’s Office pointed out, “This is an ongoing investigation.” It added that the agency is asking anyone with information regarding the Colson Avenue incident to call the Criminal Investigation Section at 941-861-4900, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers by calling 941-366-TIPS (8477) or going online at www.sarasotacrimestoppers.com.