OAKLAND, CA - MAY 13: The Alameda County Superior Courthouse is seen from this drone view in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, May 13, 2021. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
OAKLAND — A second man has been arrested and charged in connection with a February 2020 fatal shooting, only the latest police action in an investigation that stayed dormant for years.
Andre Heard, 42, was charged with murdering Charles King Jr., 37, during a Feb. 12, 2020 confrontation on the 1400 block of 85th Avenue in East Oakland. His arrest came two weeks after prosecutors charged Ahmad “Bubba” Wyatt, 45, with murdering King, alleging both Heard and King fired at the victim during a heated confrontation that King may have instigated.
The case stayed dormant for years, until a witness came forward with new information, hoping to get leniency in an unrelated criminal matter, authorities said.
The eyewitness reportedly told police that King, who went by “Scrappy,” had been acting antagonistically and yelling at passers-by outside of a liquor store near where he was killed, and knocked Wyatt to the ground. A few moments later, Wyatt allegedly returned with Heard, and the two shot him multiple times, prosecutors say.
The same witness also implicated King as a suspect in an unsolved homicide, police said.
Heard was arrested in San Francisco for allegedly violating a domestic violence restraining order and having an assault rifle in his car. In an interview with homicide detectives, he reportedly identified himself from surveillance footage of the shooting “but denied remembering shooting,” police investigators said in court documents.
Heard remains jailed without bail and had his first court appearance Tuesday, records show. Wyatt too is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, and has pleaded not guilty.
Originally published at Nate Gartrell