Overview

• A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas charged brothers Terry Ardoin, 24, and Travonte Ardoin, 27, for the June 24, 2022, daylight shooting that killed one person and wounded another in a Houston shopping center parking lot.
• Prosecutors allege the Ardoins carried out the attack as part of an ongoing gang war and have charged them with murder-in-aid-of-racketeering, attempted murder-in-aid-of-racketeering, and multiple firearms offenses under RICO statutes.
• Court documents note witnesses heard dozens of shots from what sounded like a fully automatic weapon modified with a machine-gun conversion “switch” when the suspects opened fire on a Chevrolet Equinox.
• The FBI led the investigation with assistance from the Houston Police Department under the DOJ’s Violent Crime Initiative aimed at dismantling organized gang violence in Houston.
• If convicted, the defendants face up to life in prison or the death penalty and will have their sentences determined in pretrial proceedings guided by U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.