July 26, 2011 Roanoke police arrest man with links to security officer murder www.privateofficer.com
Roanoke VA July 26 2011 Police arrested a man on a gun charge after executing a search warrant that links him to the July 13 killing of Afton Gardens apartment complex security guard Steve Orange Jr., according to court filings.
Gene Anthony Brown, 28, was jailed without bail in Roanoke City Jail following his arrest July 20 by heavily armed members of the police tactical team at the Econolodge hotel on Orange Avenue. Brown, convicted of buying a stolen firearm and escape in 2001, was charged with possessing a firearm by a felon.
Police seized cell phones from an Econolodge room to see whether they were used to plot Orange’s killing, according to a search warrant filed today in Roanoke District Court.
“It was found by detectives that there was communication through the use of cell phones about the planning of the killing of the security guard,” the search warrant said. Police sought the phones “to further aid in this homicide investigation,” according to the document.
No one has been charged in Orange’s killing. Police spokeswoman Aisha Johnson declined to comment.
Brown fell under police suspicion the day before he was arrested, when an unnamed witness told detectives of seeing Brown toting a sawed-off shotgun on Hunt Avenue northwest, near the Afton Gardens apartment complex in northwest Roanoke.
Over the next two days, detectives searched a house where Brown had been seen coming and going, the Afton Gardens apartment he shared with his girlfriend, his girlfriend’s car and two Econolodge rooms, the search warrants said. They found a gun two empty gun boxes and multiple cell phones, according to the warrants.
Orange, 46, patrolled Afton Gardens since at least 2010, when his security company ProTecht was contracted. He enforced a 9 p.m. curfew on the property and kept away people who had been banned from the complex. ProTecht guards carry a gun and have arrest authority.
Source:roanoke.com
Tags: Gene Anthony Brown, Roanoke police arrest man with links to security officer murder, Steve Orange Jr.
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