Gang Deng Majok pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murdering a teenager who lived in Scarborough and injuring another man in a shooting at a recording studio in Portland’s Old Port in May.
Majok, 30, who is being held without bail, had been indicted by a Cumberland County grand jury this month on charges that he murdered 19-year-old Treyjon Arsenault and injured Mohamed Ali. Majok was arrested Monday in Saco after dodging police for 2½ weeks.
On July 16, police arrested Johnny Ouch, 20, in Westbrook, charging him with murder and elevated aggravated assault against the same victims. Ouch pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
As part of Majok’s appearance in Cumberland County Unified Criminal Court, prosecutors released documents that shed some light on events at the Da Block Recording studio leading up to the May 25 shooting, and on the police investigation into it.
In the affidavit submitted to support the request for a warrant after the shooting, Portland police Detective Lisa Sweatt describes the initial response and investigation. Majok and Ouch aren’t named in the affidavit, which was filed before police had any suspects.
‘SHOTS FIRED,’ THEN SCREAMING
Dispatchers received several calls for “shots fired” at 26 Market St., one of the entrances to the building at the corner of Market and Fore streets where the studio is located. Dispatchers could hear screaming in the background during a call from a woman who said her friend had been shot.
Sgt. Tim Farris was the first on the scene and found several witnesses outside the building’s entrance, including a man who had been shot.
“The witnesses said the shooter ran out of the studio, but the officers did not know where the shooter was,” the affidavit said. A team of officers that went upstairs found another shooting victim in the studio’s sound booth. The officers carried him out and both victims were taken to Maine Medical Center by rescue workers.
Dominic Deas, 38, an associate of the studio’s owner, told police that Arsenault, Ali, Gloria Oriol, 18, and Jeffrey “J Star” Silva (which is spelled Silvia in other court records), 20, arrived between 9 and 9:30 p.m., and that Kirkland Lamore arrived between 10:30 and 11 p.m.
Deas told police that he left the studio’s lounge area to use the bathroom down the hallway and then heard five or six gunshots, the affidavit said. He saw people running from the studio and heard Oriol yell that someone had been shot.
Later, Oriol told Detective Richard Beaumont that when she arrived at the studio there were a dozen or so men she didn’t know, including three or four black men and an Asian man.
Oriol went to start her session, going into the sound booth that is separated from the control room’s mixers and recording equipment by a large glass window. The four men she knew were in the control room when the three or four black men and an Asian man came into the sound booth and started talking to her, the affidavit said. She told them to leave so she could start recording.
The men went into the control room and Oriol heard an argument break out. She moved to see past the microphone and saw the barrel of a black gun and heard five or six shots, the affidavit said. She could see people ducking in the control room, and she did the same. Several people ran, and when she stood up she saw that Arsenault and Ali had been shot. She yelled out a window facing Market Street for someone to call police.
Oriol had started her session, so it’s possible the recording equipment captured some of the altercation, the affidavit said.
Silva told Detective Bryan Letarte that in the control room just before the shooting, a short Asian or light-skinned black man was telling Ali that he “beat you up once before and you ran like a (expletive).”
Ali responded, “I’m not a (expletive)” and that the other man shouldn’t start trouble in the studio. The man told Ali to step outside, and as he did, a tall black man punched Ali in the face, the affidavit said. Ali tried to fight back, but both the short man and the tall one pulled out guns.
“Everyone started to yell and some of us tried to push the males and they started firing the guns,” the affidavit quotes Silva as saying.
Ali was on the ground, clutching his side where he had been shot. Silva thought the smaller man had shot Ali and the larger man had shot Arsenault.
Police used the witnesses’ descriptions in the affidavit to support their case for a forensic search of the studio, not only for weapons and bullets, but also for DNA and fingerprints and other trace evidence. They also seized computers and cellphones.
Police recovered at least nine bullets, including .380 and 9 mm ammunition.
The search uncovered a half-dozen cellphones that had been left behind in the commotion, including on a pool table and in a backpack. Police also seized desktop and laptop computers and USB drives. They took swabs to collect biological trace evidence from several red plastic cups, iced tea, beer and other drink containers, and from red-brown stains that might have been blood. They also took cigarette butts and empty containers from the trash.
After a week of collecting and processing evidence, they asked for the warrant to be extended 10 days so they could walk witnesses through the building, giving them a chance to point out where different people were at different times of the night.
The affidavit does not say what led police to Ouch and Majok. Ouch is of Cambodian descent, but was born in the United States. Majok is from Sudan.
SUSPECT KNEW ONE OF THE VICTIMS
Ouch and Ali, the shooting victim who survived, knew each other from attending Deering High School in Portland, said Ouch’s attorney, Amy Fairfield.
Majok appeared in court Wednesday wearing a shirt and tie and dark-blue pants instead of the yellow jail uniform of a maximum security inmate. He was wearing handcuffs and escorted by county deputies.
A small group of people who appeared to be family and friends declined to comment after Majok’s arraignment.
Through his attorneys, Robert Ruffner and Kristine Hanly, Majok waived his right to a speedy hearing on whether he can continue being held without bail. The lawyers said they would notify the court if they wanted to challenge that order. Ruffner said he couldn’t comment on the charges against their client because he had just been assigned to the case on Tuesday and has not seen the state’s evidence.
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