Calling him “no stranger” to running afoul of the law, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said she “personally worked” to steer a teen accused of a violent carjacking away from a life of crime.
Tyrese Harris, 18, was arrested Sunday and accused of climbing into a car belonging to Kelleye Rhein while she was pumping gas at the Costco on Dublin Street just before 3pm on Tuesday, February 1. Police say Harris drove off in the car, dragging Rhein through the parking lot for about 40 feet.
Rhein suffered a fractured skull and several cuts.
During questioning for the carjacking, Harris also admitted to murdering 12-year-old Derrick Cash on January 10, according to court documents. Cash, a student at Success Prep at Thurgood Marshal, was found shot in the head and body next to a Jeep Cherokee reported stolen from the Pontchartrain Hotel’s valet line.
Both Cash’s body and the vehicle were found in the 1400 block of Michoud Boulevard.
Court documents indicate police linked Harris to Cash’s murder through evidence found on a cellphone belonging to Harris. The phone was retrieved as part of another carjacking investigation on January 18 that Harris may have also been involved in.
In that incident, police allege Harris shot at a car owner at a gas station located near the former Lee Circle but fled the scene without stealing the car. Police located Harris’s cellphone on the ground along with some spent shell casings.
Mayor Cantrell said Harris was, at one time, a part of the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center, a city program that endeavors to rehabilitate juvenile offenders.
“I've personally worked with the family here to try to steer this individual into a different pathway,” Cantrell said. “We actually had him signed up to be affiliated with the Junior National Guard - a way to get him out of the city, to steer this individual in the right direction.”
She said that Harris’s rehabilitation will now fall to the adult criminal justice system.
“They arrested this young man over and over again, and now it's time for the other elements within our criminal justice system to do their part to ensure that our people can live freely in the City of New Orleans and not have to fear for their lives,” Cantrell said.
Harris was already out on a $12,500 bond at the time of the alleged murder and carjacking. He was arrested in conjunction with an armed robbery investigation in August 2021, but prosecutors in District Attorney Jason Williams’s office refused to bring Harris to trial on any robbery charges, indicting him only for aggravated flight from an officer.
Williams’s office released a statement Monday regarding that particular decision:
“We were unable to accept charges on all counts due to an initial decision by the victim of the robbery not to participate in the post-arrest investigation. We support our victims and their wishes. We understand that victims have been traumatized in these cases; our goal is never to retraumatize them. Nonetheless, victim and witness testimony is often the lifeline of a case and, without it, we are often unable to move forward with charges,” the statement read.
A magistrate judge set Harris’s bond for his latest arrest at $2.5 million.
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