Rhode Island shooting suspect was recipient of miraculous healing decreed by Vatican in 2025

The suspect in a double shooting in Rhode Island this month is apparently the same man whose unexpected recovery after a health crisis as a newborn was deemed a miracle by the Vatican in 2025.

Police in Newport, Rhode Island, said in a July 24 press release that Tyquan Johnson was facing arrest for felony assault with a firearm in connection with a double shooting in Newport on July 19.

An undated photograph of Tyquan Johnson | Credit: Courtesy of Newport Police Department

The police dispatch, which said Johnson was considered “armed and dangerous,” identified the suspect’s birthday as Jan. 14, 2007. That date is the same birthday as the Rhode Island-born “Tyquan” noted by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in its information page on Blessed Salvador Valera Parra.

Valera was a 19th-century-born Spanish priest who carried out “many works of a spiritual and social nature,” particularly during cholera epidemics and earthquakes, according to the dicastery.

In considering his beatification, the dicastery said it reviewed the Rhode Island case, in which a pregnant mother was hospitalized after her amniotic sac ruptured. The baby was ultimately delivered via…