Teen who shot and killed 15-year-old on a SEPTA bus then fled the city is caught and charged with murder, police say
Zayki Davis, the teen police say shot and killed Zahkir Whitfield after a fight on a SEPTA bus, had been on the run for more than a week.
The teen who police say shot and killed 15-year-old Zahkir Whitfield after a fight on a SEPTA bus last month, then fled the city, was taken into custody by U.S. marshals Thursday on murder charges, authorities said.
Zayki Davis, 17, was arrested around noon at an apartment complex on the 1000 block of West Beech Street in Norristown, said Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Clark.
Davis, who had been on the run for more than a week, shot Whitfield in the chest after a fight on a bus in West Philadelphia last month, police said. He will face charges of murder and related crimes, authorities said.
When the fight broke out on the afternoon of March 22, police said, the driver stopped near 40th Street and Girard Avenue. Davis got off the bus, they said, then fired a single shot back into the bus that hit Whitfield in the chest.
Whitfield, of Upper Darby, was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead shortly afterward.
Police released video and images of the four suspects, including one they say showed Davis shooting at the bus, and they asked for the public’s help in identifying them. They have not identified the other three juveniles.
Whitfield, a student at Upper Darby High School, was an energetic teen who loved the outdoors, said his grandfather, Anthony Overstreet, who raised him from when he was an infant.
He loved playing basketball, Overstreet said, and at one point in his younger years played point guard on five different teams all at once.
Whitfield’s grandfather said that he was glad there had been an arrest in the case, but that it gave him little solace.
“It’s some closure that the guy is caught,” he said Thursday afternoon. “It’s some kind of peace. But my grandson is not here. Catching a guy is not going to bring him back.”
Overstreet said that he hoped Davis would be convicted and sent to prison for many years, but that no amount of time behind bars for the shooter could erase the pain of losing the boy he raised as a son.
“I’ll be satisfied, but I’ll still be mad that he can get out,” he said. “My grandson can’t wake up after 20 years.”