Deputies: Drive-by shooting linked to shooting outside Cocoa barber shop

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A drive-by shooting over the weekend on Merritt Island is connected to the shooting of a teenager outside a barber shop in Cocoa last week, deputies said.

Joshua Rodriguez, 18, was arrested this past weekend for shooting another man on Lincoln Street, investigators said.

A report said the suspect in the shooting told deputies it was done in retaliation of a shooting last week in Cocoa in which a man was shot in his backside outside a home. An SUV was seen speeding away from the scene.

One neighbor told Channel 9 that she heard a series of shots Saturday night and ordered her children to hide in a bedroom.

Witnesses described the getaway vehicle as a maroon Nissan Pathfinder, which police said was spotted in Rockledge a short time later.

The victim, Deontre Jordan, didn't have life-threatening injuries, police said.

Deputies said Rodriguez was carrying a handgun when they arrested him.

Rodriguez admitted he fired the shots and said he did it because he thought Jordan was the person who shot his friend, 17-year-old Fred Smith, Thursday outside a barber shop in Cocoa, according to the report.

Police initially arrested someone in that shooting last week, but they released him after the eyewitness who identified him as the shooter recanted his story.

Police warned they feared there might be retaliation, but a suspect hasn't been named in Thursday's shooting.

Rodriguez, who is charged with attempted murder, is being held without bail.

Cox Media Group