ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Two men are behind bars after officials say a man died of gunshot wounds Saturday on an Allentown basketball court.
Officials are crediting the arrests in large part to newly installed technology, including license plate readers and surveillance cameras placed across the city.
Allentown resident Carlos Caban was heading to the lake, just beyond the basketball court at Fountain Park, when he heard the gunshots.
“We heard gunshots and then we see everybody running,” Caban said.
Caban says before he knew it, police were arriving on scene.
“It took them like two minutes to get here,” he said.
Police responded around 6:30 p.m. Saturday to find 25-year-old Angel Martinez-Velez dead on the basketball court. The coroner ruled it a homicide, saying the cause of death is multiple gunshot wounds.
Just four days later, two arrests were made.
27-year-old Grelvis Cabrera and 18-year-old Carlos Landesta-Agramonte on Wednesday were charged with the first-degree felony, conspiracy to commit homicide, and a misdemeanor related to tampering with evidence.
In detailed affidavits, authorities recount the numerous surveillance cameras and license plate readers used to track down the two suspects.
It’s a recent city investment in Flock Safety license plate reading cameras and gunshot detection technology, paid for by millions in grants.
“Millions of dollars?” Eddie Hernandez, playing basketball at Fountain Park on Thursday, said. “Nah, that’s crazy. “That’s good though.”
The city has strategically placed 67 cameras, as well as one square mile worth of audio detectors, throughout Allentown.
In a statement, state Rep. Josh Seigel praised law enforcement for use of the technology, saying in part:
“The swiftness of these arrests is a testament to the sophistication and dedication of our police department and our District Attorney’s Office…”
And the teens and young adults, who play ball at Fountain Park multiple times a week, agree.
“Yeah, it was worth it,” Hernandez said.
“It really is important,” Caban said. “I feel like it’s a great, great thing that they did that.”
On the night of the homicide, police flooded Fountain Park Saturday. Then, they got right to work, following footage across the city.
City cameras show two cars matching witness descriptions, fleeing the scene that day, appearing to travel together, at high speeds.
A dark-colored Honda had a passenger with a red jacket. Witnesses also said the gunman was wearing a red jacket. That red jacket would later be seen in surveillance shots, as a passenger handed it off to a rear passenger, who was later identified as Landesta-Agramonte, according to court paperwork. He was seeing removing the red jacket from a car and bringing it into a garage, authorities say.
The second car seen was a white Infiniti, found to be registered to Landesta-Agramonte, court documents say.
Footage shows the two suspects meeting with several other men, who appeared to remove items from their cars, transferring them into a garage on Court Street.
Those items were later recovered from another vehicle. The items included black face masks, which were seen on the suspects at the time of the shooting.
The owner of the car that the items were recovered from consented to a search and told authorities he’d never seen the items before.
Both Cabrera and Landesta-Agramonte have been charged with conspiracy to commit homicide and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.
Cabrera and Landesta-Agramonte later admitted to being at the park during the shooting, according to authorities.