The Arizona man was “allegedly angry about his brother’s fentanyl addiction” so “killed four people and wounded a fifth in a bloody shooting rampage.” After seeing what the drug did to his brother, Iren Byers isn’t making any excuses. Police note the 20-year-old “was arrested Sunday and ‘took responsibility‘ for being the sole gunman behind the shooting spree that began Friday afternoon in Phoenix and ended Saturday in nearby Mesa.”
Linked by fentanyl addiction
He had enough after whatever fentanyl had done to his brother. Obviously, young serial killer Iren Byers didn’t think through the consequences of his actions and will probably be spending most of the rest of his life in prison. He’s not making excuses or denying anything though.
He was armed with the standard 9mm and didn’t think twice about capping his nearly random victims. Three of them were addicts and the fourth homeless. To him, they were already dead. He simply put them out of their zombie-like misery.
When arrested, Byers “claimed his victims didn’t deserve to live because three of them were fentanyl users, another was homeless.” Well, the other one, who got away, “simply made him angry, according to his police confession.”
Iren Byers, 20, allegedly shot five people at multiple locations Friday night/Saturday morning. Four were killed. pic.twitter.com/KoROUvQOqR
— National Conservative (@NatCon2022) May 30, 2023
His murder spree began around 2:14 p.m. Friday in Phoenix. A security camera caught “the moment Byers shot Nicholas Arnstad.” Byers met the 41-year-old along the canal bank near 24th Street and Thomas Road.
He admitted to police that “he shot the victim in the head because he was using fentanyl.” He really hated that “given his brother’s own abuse of the drug.” He took off running and soon boarded a city bus, bound for the community of Mesa.
That’s where he encountered his next victim, another 41-year-old man. Byers ran into Julian Cox at Beverly Park. That and the next three shootings “took place within blocks of each other.”
A dose of blues
It seems that Mr. Cox “was sitting in the south side of the park and began talking to Byers about ‘blues,’ a street name for fentanyl, leading Byers to kill him,” police explain. That incident was also filmed.
“Byers was caught on a nearby Ring camera entering the park through a hole in the fence and walking toward the area where police found Cox’s body Friday night,” authorities relate. “A gunshot can be heard on the footage.”
The cops were working late on the investigation and were still at the park. That’s when “officers heard another set of gunshots just after midnight and rushed to find the only surviving victim of Byers’ alleged rampage, 36-year-old Angela Fonseca.” As Byers informed them later, after they had him under arrest, “he met the woman while walking on Main Street and that during their conversation, Fonseca made him angry, leading him to shoot her in the face.”
“He was good and he was trying.”
The sister of 41yo Stephen Young says her homeless brother was trying to turn his life around. On 5/27, Young was 1/5 shooting victims, killed on his sister’s birthday. Mesa PD says the suspect Iren Byers say he shot victims for using fentanyl. pic.twitter.com/KWVFhJojln
— Justin Lum | 林俊豪 (@jlumfox10) May 29, 2023
She wasn’t on fentanyl and his shot didn’t kill her. “After seeing that she was still alive, Byers said, he shot her again.” She somehow remained alive until police had her transported to the hospital.
Once they had him in custody police pieced together the day he spent wandering around Mesa. At some point, Byers “got aboard the light rail” with victim Stephen Young, also 41. Young “allegedly wanted to smoke fentanyl.” A witness “spotted Byers walking south on Country Club Drive in Mesa and saw the gunman run off after a loud pop. As with Cox, Young was shot in the head.”
After midnight, and also after shooting Ms. Fonseca, “Byers met John Swain, 40, a homeless man, near the railroad tracks by Extension and 2nd Avenue in Mesa.” He wasn’t a fentanyl user. Byers told police “that he killed him simply because he was homeless and not from the area.” They didn’t catch him until Saturday, and that was for “an unrelated charge.” He confessed all on his own to “being the gunman they were searching for.“
