A 30-year-old D.C. resident has been charged in the killing of a man experiencing homelessness on March 9, an incident that set off a frenzied 30-hour search across two cities after police connected it to a similar killing in New York last weekend and three other non-fatal assaults on other unhoused residents.

Gerald Brevard III was arrested at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday outside a gas station in the 2300 block of Pennsylvania Avenue SE by agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and taken into custody for questioning. By Tuesday afternoon D.C. officials had charged him.

Brevard faces a first-degree murder charge for allegedly killing 54-year-old Morgan Holmes as he slept in his tent on New York Avenue NE early on March 9. He has also been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon for allegedly shooting a man experiencing homelessness on March 3, and assault with intent to kill for another similar non-fatal shooting on March 8.

“We’ve got our man,” said D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. “It was an incredible amount of detective work, science, and community support. It’s a demonstration of how quickly we can close homicide cases when all three of those things are working together,” he added, saying that police expect to pay out a reward that rose to $70,000 for information into who was responsible for the five attacks over a two-week period.

Contee provided new details on the search for Brevard, which began in earnest on Sunday night and intensified Monday when officials released new images caught by surveillance cameras — later said to be from an ATM machine in Union Station — that clearly showed his face. Contee said they received a community tip identifying him, and later found a picture he allegedly posted to social media that showed he was in D.C.

ATF agents were actively surveilling the area around where Brevard was arrested; it is a few blocks from where he was listed as living as recently as last year. The ATF was also able to make the ballistics match that showed that the same gun was being used in the attacks. That gun has not yet been recovered.

“We do not have a firearm at this point. But based on all the evidence that we pulled together in this case, the video evidence, the images that we’ve seen this individual in, I’m very confident that this is the person. We have enough probable cause to charge that person with the crimes that have occurred here in the District of Columbia,” said Contee.

Contee added that there is still no known motive for the attacks, and police currently believe there was no connection between Brevard and any of the people he allegedly shot. He also said that police have “assumptions” as to how Brevard may have moved between cities, but that also remains under investigation. There is also no indication yet that any similar attacks occurred in cities other than D.C. and New York.

According to court records, Brevard has a history of arrests — including for some assaults — in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. In 2019 he underwent a psychiatric evaluation at St. Elizabeths Hospital in D.C., where a doctor found him competent to stand trial.

Speaking at the press conference on Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said she hoped the same quick resolution could happen in every case of an alleged homicide.

“I am relieved,” she said. “If we can do this in this case, we can do it in every case.”