Ten years ago, Daniel Elijah Hawkins, 29, escaped death after being shot in Norristown while driving a car on Independence Day 2013, but the passenger, Tyrek “Reke” Fairel, did not.
At a Fairel graveside birthday celebration at Whitemarsh Memorial Park on March 18, in an ironic twist of fate, the Philadelphia man met death at the hands of Arian Davis, 33, of Philadelphia, in a shooting that Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele called self-defense.
The announcement Friday by Steele said there would be no criminal charges filed against Davis, who had a legally purchased firearm and a valid concealed carry permit.
“Evidence shows that Hawkins approached Davis’ vehicle and began firing multiple rounds at him using a firearm that was illegally altered to fire rapidly,” Steele said. “Bullets struck Davis in multiple parts of his body before he fired back, striking Hawkins and killing him. Davis was under attack and in danger of being killed when he fired his legally owned weapon to end the threat.”
When Horsham Township Police arrived at the cemetery on Limekiln Pike at around 3 p.m., prompted by numerous 911 calls reporting shots fired, Hawkins was found dead on a grassy area near Fairel’s gravesite, surrounded by more than 30 shell casings, authorities said. A Glock 47 .40-caliber gun was found nearby.
Davis suffered serious injuries to his face, jaw, hand, and leg, police said, and was taken to Abington Memorial Hospital by a friend.
“The investigation found that the Glock firearm recovered next to Hawkins’ body had an extended magazine and had been altered to add a device known as a ‘switch’ that converted the handgun into a fully automatic weapon,” Steele said in a press release. “Hawkins was prohibited from possessing a firearm due to prior felony convictions.”
Police said Hawkins’ body was found near a Jeep Grand Cherokee that had fraudulent temporary license plate, and which Hawkins drove alone to the cemetery, according to witnesses.
Montgomery County Detectives discovered the Jeep was reported stolen out of Philadelphia, police said.
“There is no doubt about who shot and killed Hawkins, so the legal issue to be analyzed is whether this was a justifiable killing. To be justified in his shooting of Hawkins, the shooter had to be in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury,” Steele said.
Authorities said Davis and others came to the cemetery to celebrate Fairel’s birthday, who had been killed in 2013. As Davis and a friend were seated in the car they arrived in, Hawkins approached and began shooting into the car at Davis, whom he knew, police said.
Hawkins’ illegally altered gun had been switched to fully automatic mode, police said.
In response, Davis returned fire with his gun, striking and killing Hawkins, police said.
According to a November 2013 Norristown Patch article, the then 19-year-old Hawkins – nicknamed “Naji” – was shot in his left hand during the Fairel killing, treated at Mercy Suburban Hospital, and later released.
Fairel, 19, who was shot in the back of the head in the 2013 incident, was airlifted from Mercy Suburban to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, and succumbed to his injury the next day, according to the article.
Dwayne Eric Jubilee Jr., then 20 years old, of Norristown, was arrested in connection with the death of Fairel on Nov. 1, 2013, by U.S. Marshals and Philadelphia Police, according to the report. Jubilee was initially charged with third-degree murder, a first-degree felony punishable by 20 to 40 years in prison, police said.
Jubilee was eventually given 7½ to 15 years in prison in January 2015, after being found guilty on two counts of aggravated assault, possession of a criminal instrument and two counts of reckless endangerment, according to the Times Herald. A jury found him not guilty of voluntary manslaughter, per reports.
Jubilee, 29, remains incarcerated at State Correctional Institution Somerset in southwestern Pennsylvania, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.
According to reports, Hawkins reluctantly testified against Jubilee at the August 2014 trial, but only after he was warned he would be charged with contempt of court if he continued to refuse to testify.
Jubilee, who was represented by renowned Philadelphia attorney Jack McMahon, was required to serve his sentence consecutively with an attempted murder sentence out of Philadelphia, according to the article. He pleaded guilty in August 2015 to attempted murder and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison for that crime, according to reports. Jubilee was arraigned on the attempted murder charge one month after the Norristown shooting arrest, per reports.
Police said Hawkins was driving a 2000 Chevrolet Impala on July 4, 2013, with Fairel in the backseat, when they encountered and had an argument with Jubilee on Elm Street, according to the Patch article. Jubilee fired a gunshot through the front passenger window, striking Hawkins in the hand, according to the report.
Hawkins drove away, but Jubilee fired again through the rear passenger window, fatally wounding Fairel in the back of the head, police said.
Hawkins told police after the 2013 shooting that Fairel told Hawkins to follow a white car to see who was in it, according to the Times Herald. Jubilee told police he felt he was being chased by Fairel and Hawkins, per the affidavit of probable cause. In 2013, Steele, then acting as First Assistant to District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, said Jubilee claimed to be in a “self-defense posture,” but that went out the window when evidence showed the car was driving away when he fired into the back of the car, per the report.
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