21 Year Old Leslie Allen Merritt Jr. Indicted on 15 Felony Counts, Including Aggravated Assault, Unlawful Discharge of a Firearm and Others

21 year old Leslie Allen Merritt Jr. was indicted Friday by a grand jury on 15 felony counts, including aggravated assault, unlawful discharge of a firearm, disorderly conduct, endangerment and carrying out a drive-by shooting. However, prosecutors did not file terrorism charges against Merritt in the highway shootings. Authorities had called these shootings an act of domestic terrorism. Mettitt was arrested on September 18 at a Wal-Mart. Merritt remains in jail on a $1 million bond.

A grand jury on Friday indicted a man suspected in four of the freeway shootings that have rattled the Phoenix area since late last month.

The indictment of 21-year-old Leslie Allen Merritt Jr. replaces a 16-count criminal complaint announced earlier in the week.

Merritt, of suburban Glendale, was indicted on 15 felony counts, including aggravated assault, unlawful discharge of a firearm, disorderly conduct, endangerment and carrying out a drive-by shooting.

Prosecutors did not file terrorism charges that authorities originally sought against the landscaper and father of two who was arrested Sept. 18 at a Wal-Mart. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery previously said Arizona’s terrorism laws enacted after 9/11 focus mostly on protecting public utilities from attack and would not apply to the freeway shootings.

Using ballistics tests, Arizona Department of Public Safety detectives tied Merritt to four of the 11 shootings that occurred on Phoenix-area freeways between Aug. 27 and Sept. 10.