A Reading man accused of fatally shooting two people at an early morning garage party in Reading in September is in custody.<\/p>\n
Raul Perez-Diaz, 31, turned himself in to authorities Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Following arraignment before District Judge Kyley L. Scott, he was sent to Berks County Jail without bail to await a hearing.<\/p>\n
An arrest warrant was issued by Scott on Oct. 3 for Perez-Diaz of the 900 block of North 10th Street.<\/p>\n
Perez-Diaz is believed to be the gunman who opened fire during a garage birthday party in the 800 block of Nicolls Street on Sept. 27, according to investigators. Victor Urena-Yami, 25, and Victor Jimenez, 21, died of their injuries.<\/p>\n
According to court documents:<\/p>\n
Police were called to the scene just before 6 a.m. for reports of gunfire.<\/p>\n
When officers arrived, they found two men face down near the entrance to a garage, which is at the rear of a home in the 800 block of North Eighth Street. Both had suffered gunshot injuries and were taken to Reading Hospital, where they were later pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
Through video recordings and interviews with witnesses, investigators determined Perez-Diaz arrived at the garage at 5:52 a.m. with two other men, pulling up in a silver sedan.<\/p>\n
A group of people were inside, listening to music as they celebrated a birthday.<\/p>\n
Men from inside the garage spoke to Perez-Diaz and his passengers as they sat in their car outside the garage. It was unclear what was discussed, but it appeared to have been a dispute.<\/p>\n
Perez-Diaz got out of his car, entered the garage and, a short time later, began firing a handgun. He ran out of the garage and, after taking cover for a moment behind his vehicle, took off running.<\/p>\n
A few moments later, he stole a car at gunpoint in the area of North Ninth and Marion streets.<\/p>\n
Perez-Diaz suffered a gunshot wound to his back at the garage. After driving home in the stolen car, he called a taxi to take him to Reading Hospital. He was interviewed there by police.<\/p>\n
Perez-Diaz admitted to being involved in the shooting but claimed he fired only after one of the victims shot at him first.<\/p>\n
Witnesses rebutted that claim, saying Perez-Diaz, who appeared to be drunk at the time, was the aggressor and fired first.<\/p>\n
Perez-Diaz faces two counts each of first- and third-degree murder and aggravated assault as well as single counts of possessing an instrument of crime, theft, receiving stolen property, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Reading man accused of fatally shooting two people at an early morning garage party in Reading in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3772,3773,736,128,130,129,2791,3771,3774],"class_list":["post-4110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-gunshot-injuries","tag-kyley-l-scott","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-hospital","tag-victor-jimenez","tag-victor-urena-yami"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}