17-year-old charged as adult in May shooting incident

Staff report

ARCHER, Fla. – Ryan Michael Williams, 17, of Newberry, has been charged as an adult for allegedly shooting at another teen in May.

At about 10 p.m. on May 2, Alachua County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a report that shots were fired in the 12800 block of SW Archer Road and spoke with an 18-year-old victim who said he and a friend had gotten into an argument with two people at a gas station at SW 122nd Street and SW Archer Road. He said the people they argued with were in a red Dodge pickup truck, and he recognized Williams as the passenger, but he wasn’t sure who was driving the truck.

The victim said he drove home, the red truck stopped on the roadway, partially in the victim’s driveway, and they argued again before the victim heard multiple gunshots coming from the truck. The victim said he believed Williams was the one shooting because Williams had displayed an unknown object with a laser attached while they were at the gas station.

One 9mm Winchester 9mm casing was found in the victim’s driveway.

The investigation led to a TikTok account for Williams, which led to his name and date of birth, and deputies found that Williams had been contacted in April in a red truck that matched the description provided by the victim.

The next day, deputies located the truck and conducted a traffic stop; the driver reportedly said her son, Elijay Ray Mark, 18, was with Williams, and she provided an address. Deputies reported that multiple spent Winchester 9mm casings were found on the passenger side of the truck, identical to the one found in the victim’s driveway.

Deputies went to the address provided by the driver, and Elijah Mark reportedly said he had been driving the truck the previous night when he saw the victim’s friend at the Chevron and wanted to fight him because of issues from a previous incident; he said he went home and picked up Williams, and they went back to the Chevron, where he tried to fight with the victim’s friend but ultimately fled in his truck. He said the victim’s friend chased him westbound on SW Archer Road, but at some point, the victim’s friend turned around, and Mark began chasing him in his own truck.

Mark said the victim’s friend pulled into an unknown address, and Mark parked in the roadway at the end of the driveway; as Mark was yelling at the victim’s friend from the truck, Williams allegedly leaned out of the truck window on the passenger side and started shooting into the ground. Mark said that scared him, and he drove home with Williams.

Deputies received information about Williams’s location and arrested him. Williams reportedly refused to cooperate at first, but he eventually described a “developing situation” between himself and the victim’s friend. He said he’d had a gun the previous evening and had “possibly” pointed a laser attached to it at the victim’s friend while they were at the Chevron. He reportedly said that after they drove to the victim’s home, he displayed the gun again and shot several times into the ground. He said he never intended to shoot at the victim’s friend or his vehicle; he only wanted to scare him so he “would not have problems with him anymore.”

Williams was arrested as a juvenile and booked into the Juvenile Detention Center, and on June 11, he was transferred to the adult jail; he has now been charged as an adult with discharging a firearm from a vehicle and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He has a juvenile history from 2022 to 2026 and is also facing a Notice to Appear for reckless driving from February. Judge Susan Miller-Jones set bail at $150,000.

A deputy wrote that when Williams allegedly pointed the laser on his gun at the victim’s friend at the Chevron, Mark would have become aware that Williams had a gun; Mark is now facing a sworn complaint for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon because he chased the victim’s friend to a residence, knowing that Williams had a gun and was willing to display it. No warrant has been issued for Mark’s arrest.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.