A Mount Penn man has been charged as the second suspect in a shooting last weekend that wounded two people during a fight outside a south Reading tavern.
William Raspaldo‑Morales, 31, was charged Tuesday with multiple counts of aggravated assault, conspiracy and reckless endangerment. He was committed to Berks County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail following arraignment Wednesday morning before District Judge Carissa L. Johnson.
Police said witnesses — including one of the victims — linked Raspaldo‑Morales to the shooting, which occurred about 2 a.m. Saturday at South Seventh and Laurel streets.
Raspaldo‑Morales of the first block of North 23rd Street was charged after three individuals, including one of the victims, went to City Hall on Tuesday to give statements about what led up to the shooting.
The other suspect, Julio E. Echevarria‑Morales, 46, of Reading, is also in the county jail, having been denied bail following his arraignment Saturday.
According to investigators:
The female victim told investigators she argued with another woman inside the bar, and the dispute spilled outside, where a crowd of about 18 people gathered. As the two women began fighting, she heard a gunshot. She turned and saw a man wearing a white shirt and red shorts — later identified as Echevarria‑Morales — holding a pistol in the air. He told police that he fired a shot upward.
The woman said Raspaldo‑Morales then took the gun from Echevarria‑Morales. As the crowd moved around the corner of the bar, she heard a second shot and felt pain in her stomach, realizing she had been struck.
While a friend dragged her toward a vehicle, the same man who had taken the gun pointed it at her again, she said, but another person intervened, telling him that she had already been shot.
Other witnesses and exterior‑camera footage corroborated her account. Investigators said the video showed Echevarria‑Morales offering no resistance when Raspaldo‑Morales took the gun after he lowered it to his side.
When officers arrived, people were fleeing the area, but several stopped to report that the shooter was in a nearby parked car. Officers seized the gun from the center console after seeing Echevarria‑Morales attempt to place it in the glove box.
Also in the car was Raspaldo-Morales, who admitted to officers that he owned the gun that Echevarria-Morales was seen trying to put in the glove box.
Raspaldo‑Morales admitted he owned both the gun and the car they were in.
While police were speaking with the men, other officers located a male gunshot victim about 30 feet from the car. He had wounds to an arm. Two spent casings, a projectile and a live round were found nearby.
A short time later, police learned that a female victim had arrived by private vehicle at Reading Hospital with a gunshot wound to the stomach.