Charlottesville police have made an arrest in last month’s shooting death of 22-year-old Jarvis C. Brown.
Twenty-one-year-old Charlottesville resident Tsaye Lemar Simpson has been charged with first degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Police responded to a 911 call to the 2500 block of Woodland Drive in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood at approximately 3:15am on October 17 and found Brown dead of a gunshot wound.
According to a police release, Simpson was arrested on the charges on November 5 at the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Jail, where he was being held on an unrelated charge. According to court records, he had been arrested and charged with being a nonviolent felon in possession of a gun on October 22— five days after Brown’s death.
This is not Simpson’s first high profile brush with the law. Back in August 2009, Simpson—then 17 and a rising junior at Charlottesville High School—led police on a high speed chase in a stolen car. After topping 85 mph going down Rugby Road, Simpson was unable to navigate the turn onto Preston Avenue and crashed through a barrier, ripped through the roof of a house and then somehow escaped the mangled wreckage seemingly without injury. Arrested three months later and tried as an adult, he pleaded guilty in January 2010 and was given a 22-year suspended sentence as an adult and ordered to serve three years— until his 21st birthday— in a juvenile detention center. According to court records, Simpson’s birthday is April 19.
Brown was an employee of UVA food service provider Aramark and a dedicated father of a two-year-old daughter, according to an account in the Daily Progress.
Simpson is scheduled to appear in Charlottesville District Court on December 5.
Nov. 7, 12:17pm: Story updated with details about Simpson’s previous arrest