Mark Teal,and John Teal were shot to death on Bloods territory
Mark Teal, 20, and John Teal, 16, were shot to death while walking on a tiny stretch of North Flagler Drive about 9:30 p.m. Sunday, police and witnesses said.
The shootings happened on the same night gang symbols appeared in red spray paint on two buildings down the road from an apartment where the Teals were staying, at 316 Pine St., according to a property owner and a security guard who was patrolling a nearby condominium complex Sunday night.The trail of fresh graffiti, which identified the area as Bloods territory, roughly led from an entrance to the Teals' apartment building to southbound Flagler Drive, about a mile north of where the brothers were shot.Some of the spray-painted symbols were identical to permanent marker scrawls on doors to each of the brothers' rooms in a house they once shared with their mother, Judith Teal. Palm Beach County sheriff's Detective David Ray photographed the symbols during a May 15 child neglect investigation that led to Judith Teal's arrest in Royal Palm Beach.The West Palm Beach markings also matched graffiti painted on a stop sign at 55th Road North and 130th Avenue, within sight of Judith Teal's suburban Royal Palm Beach home.West Palm Beach police Capt. Pat Maney, who heads the agency's criminal investigations division, said his detectives are probing whether the shootings were gang-related but also are exploring other conceivable scenarios."I'm not going to deny that we would explore that possibility," Maney said Tuesday, but added: "If these two individuals did have some involvement in a gang, that doesn't mean that their deaths are gang-related."
Maney wouldn't say whether his detectives suspected the Teals painted the gang signs near their apartment Sunday night.At least two of the Teals' former neighbors on 55th Road North insisted the brothers thought of themselves as members of the Pirus or Bloods, a violent criminal street gang started in Los Angeles in the early 1970s.
"Mark kept saying he was with the gang the Bloods - 'I'm with the Bloods, I'll get my boys, and we'll f——ing kill you. We'll take your a— out, bang bang,'" said Dennis Makee, whose contentious relationship with the Teals is chronicled in Palm Beach County sheriff's records.Makee said the brothers would paint Bloods symbols on signs at the intersection of 55th Road North and 130th Avenue.He added that Mark Teal threatened him dozens of times since 2005."He kept going by my house, shooting me the bird," Makee said. "He spit on me."The Teals' father, former Palm Beach County Assistant Public Defender Mark Teal, couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday. On Monday, a grieving Teal defended his sons, calling them "good boys."
Even so, neighbors in Royal Palm Beach said they feared the Teals."The Teal brothers held our neighborhood hostage," said one woman, who asked not to be named because she feared for family members who still lived on 55th Road North. "The boys were on the wrong path for many years, and no one could stop them."
