Jason Khaleen-Rowe, a 25-year-old male, was shot in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, late on the night of April 1, 2015, during what court records later described as an exchange involving firearms. News reports identified him as being from the Bronx, New York, and said the shooting happened on South Street near Meade Street at about 10 p.m. He was wounded while in or near a vehicle and was taken to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, where he died the following morning. An autopsy found that he died from a single gunshot wound to the pelvis.
The events leading up to the shooting centered on Delroy R. Toomer, who was driving an Infiniti in Wilkes-Barre, while Jason Rowe was a passenger in a Nissan Altima traveling ahead of him. According to the later Pennsylvania Superior Court opinion, Toomer’s wife, Angelic, realized she had left one of her licensed firearms in the Altima. Toomer called Rowe and asked him to pull over so the gun could be retrieved. During the exchange between Toomer and Rowe, the gun discharged and struck Rowe in his right side.
After the gun went off, Toomer took the firearm and returned to his vehicle. Court records say he instructed Angelic Toomer to drive Rowe to the hospital in Rowe’s vehicle. Toomer later testified that he did not drive Rowe himself because he did not have a driver’s license and feared being stopped while speeding to the hospital. While Rowe was being taken for emergency care, Toomer discovered that Angelic had left her purse in his car, and that the purse contained firearms. Toomer, who was not licensed to carry a firearm, took the guns to his apartment.
The aftermath became a central part of the criminal case. Police were alerted that a shooting victim had been brought to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, and Detective Charles Jensen interviewed Angelic Toomer. She gave police permission to search the apartment she shared with Toomer. Investigators found the firearms there, one on the kitchen counter and another on top of the refrigerator. When Toomer was interviewed at police headquarters, he initially told police that Angelic had been retrieving the firearm from Rowe when it discharged, but investigators said that version did not fit the evidence. He then gave a different account that police believed matched what had happened.
Delroy Toomer was arrested and initially charged in connection with the shooting, including aggravated assault, tampering with evidence, and carrying a firearm without a license. However, court records later made clear that Toomer was not charged in connection with Rowe’s death itself. The prosecution moved forward on the firearms and evidence-tampering charges. A jury convicted Toomer of carrying a firearm without a license and tampering with physical evidence.
On March 1, 2016, Toomer was sentenced in Luzerne County Court to 15 to 30 months in prison for the firearms conviction, along with a concurrent 12 months of probation for tampering with evidence. He appealed, arguing in part that the firearm charge should have been dismissed as too minor under the circumstances and that the evidence was insufficient to prove tampering. In April 2017, the Pennsylvania Superior Court rejected those arguments and affirmed the sentence, finding that the jury could reasonably conclude Toomer knew a police investigation would follow Rowe’s shooting and that he concealed or removed the guns in a way that impaired their availability to investigators.
The available sources describe Jason Khaleen-Rowe’s death as the result of a gunshot during a firearms exchange, not as a case that resulted in a murder conviction. Toomer remained the central suspect and defendant tied to the incident, but the confirmed convictions were for carrying a firearm without a license and tampering with physical evidence, not homicide.
