Police announce arrest of teen in Fairmount Park shooting that killed a 17-year-old girl and wounded 4 others

Philadelphia police announced Thursday the arrest of a 16-year-old boy in a Fairmount Park shooting in June that killed a 17-year-old girl and wounded four other teens.

Zayaan Carroll was charged as an adult with murder, aggravated assault, gun violations, and related offenses for the June 14 shooting that killed Isya Stanley, who had just graduated from Freire Charter High School and was set to attend Morgan State University in Maryland.

Carroll was arrested Wednesday by the U.S. Marshals Service, said Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore at a City Hall news conference attended by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and other officials.

Vanore said investigators determined Carroll was engaged in a shootout with another person who has not yet been identified, and all the victims were bystanders who were in the “wrong place at the wrong time.”

Assistant District Attorney Anthony Voci Jr. said a break in the case occurred when a Philadelphia police officer made a “routine stop” of another 16-year-old boy and recovered a gun and a phone.

A ballistics test on that gun confirmed that it was used in the shooting of Stanley and the other teens, Voci said.

The boy’s phone revealed conversations with Carroll, and investigators got a search warrant for Carroll’s Instagram account, which revealed discussions about the shooting, Voci said.

“Zayaan Carroll had a hot gun. He needs to get rid of it. He passes it off to this kid, who gets arrested with the gun, and now we’re on to Zayaan Carroll. And lo and behold, we get into his Instagram, and he’s got messages that day that suggest he was there and he was shooting. And then we get witnesses,” Voci said.

The night of June 14 approximately 100 teens were drawn to a “meetup” organized on social media to Fairmount Park near the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood, along Greenland Drive near 33rd Street and Ridge Avenue.

The gunfire erupted around 10:50 p.m. and Stanley was shot in the chest and shoulder. She was transported to Temple University Hospital, where she died 20 minutes later. The other shooting victims included an 18-year-old woman, a 14-year-old boy, and two 15-year-old boys.

“Social media was a big part of this,” Vanore said.

The meetup in Fairmount Park was promoted by some of the same people who then organized a meetup on July 4 in Kingsessing that was the scene of a late-night shooting on the 1900 block of South Salford Street that killed a 19-year-old man and wounded eight others, Vanore said.

Around 11:30 p.m., as the party died down, a gunman in a white Toyota Highlander pulled up and fired 17 shots into the lingering crowd.

Maurice White Quann, who helped to promote the party, was shot in the face and pronounced dead a short time later at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Police said Quann, who was close friends with Stanley, was an innocent bystander.

The Toyota Highlander was located a short time later in Lansdowne, with bullet casings scattered through the vehicle.

The shooter in that case remains at large, and it is unclear if Carroll had any involvement.

“We can’t say one way or another that Carroll is connected to that other case,” Voci said.