Police say the suspect is in the Dominican Republic after a January 2025 deportation.
PHILADELPHIA, PA— Philadelphia police say a man identified as the suspect in a 2022 double homicide was deported to the Dominican Republic more than a year before investigators secured an arrest warrant and tried to take him into custody.
Homicide detectives said the case centers on a late night gathering that turned into a burst of gunfire on a Port Richmond block, killing 16-year-old Andrea De Los Santos and 22-year-old Pamela Merejo-Medina and injuring other people nearby. Police say they developed enough evidence after reopening the investigation to obtain a warrant on Feb. 3, but learned during an attempted arrest this month that the suspect had been removed from the United States in January 2025. The FBI is now working with Philadelphia police to try to bring him back to face charges.
Investigators identified the suspect as 27-year-old Jiwandy Gonzales, whom police say is wanted in connection with the May 30, 2022, shooting on the 2900 block of East Tioga Street. Detectives described the scene as a “boom party” gathering, a type of large, often loud street meetup that can draw crowds and cars late at night. Police said two people arrived and began shooting, sending people running as bullets struck bystanders and parked vehicles.
Police said De Los Santos and Merejo-Medina were killed in the gunfire and two others were wounded, including a 14-year-old girl and a 21-year-old man. Investigators said the 21-year-old man was the intended target. Detectives also tied Gonzales to a separate nonfatal shooting about a month earlier on the 400 block of East Wyoming Avenue, where that same 21-year-old man was shot, police said. That earlier case did not result in charges at the time, and detectives said the lack of cooperation from the intended target limited what they could prove then.
“Keep in mind the victim that was shot in this case knew who the shooter was and refused to cooperate,” Inspector Ernest Ransom, commanding officer of the Philadelphia Police Department Homicide Unit, said in an interview carried by local television. Ransom said detectives eventually gained the additional piece they needed after taking another look at the evidence and leads. Police said they moved forward with the warrant after working with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.
Ransom also pointed to the crush of violence in Philadelphia in 2022 as part of the reason the investigation stretched on. He said the department was handling a heavy caseload that year, noting that the city had nearly 500 homicides. Even so, detectives stressed that the new warrant reflects work completed recently, not a decision made years earlier and left untouched. Police said a dedicated group created to reexamine major shootings helped push the case forward.
That unit, police said, was established in July 2025 after a mass shooting on South Etting Street in the Grays Ferry section of the city left multiple people shot. The creation of a team focused on revisiting complex shootings was meant to bring fresh attention to older cases that may have stalled, officials said. In the Gonzales case, police said the reexamination helped investigators connect incidents and sharpen their understanding of who they believed was responsible, leading to the warrant issued this month.
Authorities did not detail in public exactly what evidence led them to identify Gonzales as the suspect, and police have not said whether they believe one shooter or multiple shooters were responsible for the May 2022 gunfire. Investigators also have not released a clear timeline of where Gonzales lived in the months before his deportation or whether he had any pending local charges at the time immigration authorities removed him. Police said only that when officers went to arrest him this month, they discovered he had already been deported to the Dominican Republic in January 2025.
The deportation complicates the next steps. Police said they are now working with the FBI to try to return Gonzales to the United States. That typically requires coordination between federal agencies, prosecutors and foreign authorities, and it can depend on international procedures and court action. Investigators said the process could take months and offered no specific date for when Gonzales might be back in Philadelphia.
Family members of De Los Santos reacted with a mix of grief and cautious hope as they learned investigators had finally named a suspect. De Los Santos was 16 and dreamed of becoming an immigration lawyer, her mother, Carmen, said. Her stepfather, John Amorim, translated as Carmen spoke about the loss, describing the long stretch of time without an arrest and the way it reopened the pain each time there was a new development in the case.
Amorim said the family has struggled with the idea that someone could show up at a public gathering and fire into a crowd, leaving two young women dead and others wounded, and still not face court proceedings years later. He said Carmen believes the suspect will eventually be held accountable. For relatives, the announcement brought a renewed focus on unanswered questions about how the shooting unfolded and why the case took years to reach the point of an arrest warrant.
The May 2022 killings also remain part of a broader pattern Philadelphia officials have linked to large, loosely organized street gatherings that can quickly turn dangerous when arguments escalate or weapons are present. Police have repeatedly said shootings at crowded meetups are especially hard to investigate because witnesses may flee, videos can be incomplete, and those who know what happened may fear retaliation. Detectives in the Gonzales case said a key obstacle early on was the refusal of the intended target in the earlier Wyoming Avenue shooting to cooperate with investigators.
Public case summaries posted by Philadelphia police have said officers responded to the East Tioga Street scene around 1:18 a.m. on May 30, 2022, and that both victims were taken to Temple University Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. Those postings, created to keep attention on unsolved killings, underscore how long the case remained open and how many leads detectives pursued before naming a suspect. Police have not said whether they believe the suspect is aware of the new warrant, though detectives said he is believed to be in the Dominican Republic.
For now, the legal posture is simple but difficult to execute: Philadelphia police have an arrest warrant, but not a person in custody. Police said they intend to pursue every available avenue to have Gonzales returned to the United States to face charges tied to the deaths of De Los Santos and Merejo-Medina and to the related nonfatal shootings investigators say he is connected to. Officials have not announced any court dates, because no extradition hearing has been scheduled publicly and the suspect is not before a Philadelphia judge.
Ransom said the department is continuing to gather information while federal partners work on the next steps. Police also renewed calls for tips, saying anyone with information about Gonzales or the shootings should contact investigators. Detectives did not disclose whether they believe additional suspects are still unidentified, and they did not discuss whether more arrests could follow if new evidence points to other shooters or accomplices.
The case has also added to ongoing debate in Philadelphia about how violence investigations intersect with immigration enforcement and the limits of local police once a suspect is outside the country. Police did not say whether they had been aware of Gonzales’ immigration status during the early stages of the homicide investigation. They also did not address whether any alert or request was made to keep Gonzales from being deported while homicide detectives continued working the case, or whether detectives had enough evidence at that time to take such a step.
As investigators press forward, friends and relatives of the victims say they want the case to move from a name on a warrant to a defendant in a courtroom. The families have waited nearly four years since the gunfire on East Tioga Street, and they say each month without an arrest has felt like another reminder of what was taken from them. De Los Santos was still in her teens, and Merejo-Medina was 22, an age when many people are starting careers, building families and making long-term plans.
Police said the situation remains fluid and that they cannot say when Gonzales might be returned to face charges. Investigators said their next milestone is obtaining the necessary approvals and coordination to bring the suspect back to Philadelphia, a process they warned could take months.
Author note: Last updated February 18, 2026.