Police tape in a trash can a day after the November, 2014, shooting, which occurred near the telephone pole at center above. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The alleged gunman who shot two people seated in a truck parked on Red Bank’s West Side almost two years ago has been arrested.
Inow Rainey, 26 of Stony Hill Road in Eatontown, was arrested Friday and charged with attempted murder in the November 6, 2014 shooting, which left a man partially paralyzed and a woman briefly in critical condition.
It was also the first in a series of shootings in the area that police attributed to grudges and had neighbors on edge.
According to a press statement issued by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s office Tuesday night, Red Bank investigators “determined Rainey and another male approached the victims as they were seated in a vehicle on West Sunset Avenue. Rainey and his accomplice demanded money before the victims were shot and they fled the scene.”
The announcement did not offer additional details about the accomplice or when and how the investigation led authorities to Rainey.
Police Chief Darren McConnell referred questions to the prosecutor’s office, whose spokesman, Charlie Webster, said he did not have information beyond that which was released.
In the shooting, 29-year-old Leon Veney of Red Bank and Angelique Morris, 23, of Tinton Falls were was shot multiple times and critically wounded as they sat in a pickup truck at about 9:07 p.m. on West Sunset Avenue.
Two days later, gunfire erupted in broad daylight on River Street, resulting in a parked car getting shot up. There were no known victims in that incident, police said.
The following month, off-duty police were at the nearby Montgomery Terrace apartments delivering Christmas gifts from the PBA when they heard gunshots on West Westside Avenue. But when they arrived at the scene, both the shooter or shooters and their intended targets had vanished. A parked car belonging to an uninvolved resident was struck twice, McConnell said at the time, and police recovered at least eight shells and several spent bullets, he said. A parked car belonging to an uninvolved resident was hit twice, he said.
Two days before Christmas, McConnell told a packed meeting of scared and anxious residents that police believed they knew who was responsible for the shootings, but didn’t have enough evidence to obtain search or arrest warrants. At the time, he said the shootings appeared to be part of a cycle of grudge-and-payback, and that gang warfare was not believed to be a factor.
According to the prosecutor’s statement, Rainey was in the Monmouth County Correctional Institution at the time of his arrest on $575,000 bail related to allegations of armed robbery and other charges connected to a November 2014 incident in Shrewsbury. Webster said he did not have information about that incident.
In the Red Bank case, Rainey was charged with two counts of attempted murder; illegal possession of a handgun after having previously been convicted of a weapons offense; and armed robbery. Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Honora O’Brien-Kilgallon set bail at $600,000, with no option for Rainey to win release on the customary 10-percent bond.
Rainey is now being held on a total $1.175 million bail, according to the announcement.
The sheriff’s inmate locator website also indicated that Rainey faces a range of charges from other towns, including Loch Arbor Village, which arrested him for burglary and other alleged offenses; Long Branch, which charged him with aggravated assault and escape from detention; additional charges by Shrewsbury for theft, firearms and robbery.
In April, 2014, Veney’s brother, Perry Veney, was shot at least six times as he sat in a car as he sat in a car parked on Willow Street. Convicted murderer Anthony Sims, a Long Branch resident who pleaded guilty in 2010 to shooting two brothers on the borough’s West Side in 2007 and had been released from prison, was charged in the Perry Veney shooting, and was in custody at the time of the November and December shootings.
