Simone Biles' Brother Acquitted, Victim's Mom Lunges for Him

"You killed my baby," a woman screamed as she ran toward Tevin Biles-Thomas in a makeshift courtroom in a Cleveland convention center complex Tuesday, moments after the 26-year-old was acquitted of a triple murder on New Year's Eve 2018. "You have to be f------ kidding me," the woman yelled, per NBC. "I'm going to kill you." Sheriff's deputies tackled the woman before she could reach Biles-Thomas, the older brother of gymnast Simone Biles. She was identified as the mother of 19-year-old DelVaunte Johnson, one of three people killed in the shooting at a party at an Airbnb property in Cleveland. Biles-Thomas was also accused of killing 21-year-old Toshaun Banks and 23-year-old DeVaughn Gibson. Prosecutors said the shooting happened after a group of uninvited men tried to crash the party.

The judge dismissed murder, voluntary manslaughter, and felonious assault charges against Biles-Thomas due to a lack of evidence, Cleveland.com reports. The first trial ended in a mistrial last month. In the second trial, nobody testified that they saw Biles-Thomas—an active-duty US Army soldier—shoot anybody, and there was no forensic evidence presented. "We don’t fault the victim’s family, this was a horrible event," said Joseph Patituce, one of Biles-Thomas' attorneys. "We don’t fault the victim’s family for acting out." Biles-Thomas is one of Biles' three biological siblings but she was adopted by her grandparents and raised in a different household, the New York Times reported after his arrest in 2019. ("My heart aches for everyone involved," the gymnast said in a statement after the arrest.)