THE COLUMBUS PACKET

Packet #774 - May 8, 2008

Gary Hodges is charged with four
counts of aggravated assault in
connection with last Thursday’s
incident on Nashville Ferry Road.

An E-911 dispatcher could hear shots in the background Monday evening when a woman called from Nashville Ferry Road to report a fight. Deputy Robbie Robertson pulled up to the scene as the dispatcher reported hearing the shots. Robertson stopped three suspects and held them at gunpoint face down on the pavement until other deputies and a Columbus police officer arrived on the scene.

The suspects whom Robertson stopped were Gary Deforest Hodges, Tommy Staples and Roderick Harris. Witnesses said that the shots were fired by Hodges, and they also said that Hodges threw his pistol into some undergrowth near the road when Robertson neared. Sgt. John Duke of the city/county narcotics unit found the black 9 mm pistol as light was fading in the undergrowth.

Deputies questioned Staples and Harris at the scene but did not take them into custody.

The fight apparently involved two groups of neighbors in the 3400 block of Nashville Ferry Road. The two groups live in two small clusters of mobile homes about 200 yards apart on the west side of the road.

LCSO investigators believe that the fight originated over a dog that had allegedly been stolen and then recovered by the former owner. Bottles and rocks were thrown at the dog and at a car and finally shots were fired.

Investigator Tony Perkins said that witnesses reported hearing about eight shots, though only two empty cartridges were found in the road.

The pistol Hodges allegedly used

Jessica McCaa reportedly told investigators that one of the young males involved in the confrontation had a baby in his arms and that she was afraid the baby would be hurt and tried to break up the fight. She told investigators that Hodges threatened to shoot the young male and the baby too. McCaa said that someone broke the windshield of her car with a bottle.

A Packet source said that it was all more complicated than that. The source said that Hodges “beat the boy up that stole the dog” and that friends of the youth who was beaten taunted Hodges’s girlfriend and threw bottles at her car. That car was carrying a small child. According to this version, when Hodges and his two friends responded, and he told the taunters that if they didn’t care about the child he didn’t care about the baby.

Hodges is charged with four counts of aggravated assault. Perkins said that two slugs were found embedded head-high in a tree near the scene of the shooting.

Hodges’s address is 1802 Clover Street, but Perkins said that he “is supposed to be going to school in Georgia.” One of the cars that was damaged has Georgia plates.

The case is still under investigation.

The Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority is eyeing land along Sand Road as a potential location for a new sportsplex.

CLRA is negotiating with Bud Phillips and Charlie Miller to purchase some property along Sand Road for a sportsplex.

"I met with (Phillips and Miller) last week," said Executive Director Roger Short. "They want to take what drawings we have and look at their piece of property and basically put that generic drawing and see if it fits. After that, they'll come back to us with a cost on the property."

Phillips and Miller approached the CLRA with the idea, Short said.

"They have come to us, and I know that they have talked with some of the board of supervisors," he said.

Short said that there are over 100 acres available at the site, which is on Sand Road near Coontail Road.

The proposal is in the cost-analysis phase, Short said.

The CLRA is open to any suggestions from the public for viable land, said board President Rusty Greene.

"I've seen something in the paper where somebody asked why we're not going about it like the school board did," Greene said. "If we had a $22 million bond issue, we'd certainly go about it a different way. We're sitting here trying to buy land, and we don't know where we're at or how much money we can spend. We've really got our hands tied as to how we can go about it. We're open for suggestions. We're hoping we can fall into something that we can take and present to the board and say 'Here's an offer, can we get financial backing?' "

"We're spinning a lot of wheels because we know that this needs to be done, but we're not getting a lot of direction from people as far as how they'd like to see us accomplish this," Short said, then jokingly added, "Give us $22 million and we'll come up with a property."

"We're open for suggestion if somebody's got land they think would be good for a sportsplex," Greene said. "Call us, we're not too proud to talk to them. That's why the (Riverwalk site) was so attractive to us. We thought it was land that would be worthless to anybody but us."

While about 90 acres would be ideal, Short said "we could get it in there on 50-60 acres."

Last month, a SeverCorr employee approached CLRA with a proposal to turn some land adjacent to the plant into a soccer complex. However, that proposal is on hold.

"That is not a dead issue," Short said. "We're just looking at other opportunities, too."

CLRA was interested in property near the Riverwalk and owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. That proposal fell through when the CLRA was unable to get the Corps to lower its price for the land, which also came with a larger amount of environmental red tape than was initially anticipated.

Officer Paul Garrett looks for bullet
casings near Fannon Field in Propst
Park shortly after shots were fired
there Monday evening.

Around 8:20 p.m. Monday night someone called 911 to report that a large crowd of young black males had congregated between Fannon Field and the train in Propst Park and were about to fight. A few minutes later a caller said that shots had been fired.

When police reached the scene young people were scattering, most of them running toward the residential area north of the park. Police stopped and questioned several suspects but made no arrests. Other officers went to the scene of the incident. Several adults, including CLRA employee Robert Clark, remained at the spot where the incident occurred.

They reported that two shots had been fired, but there were no indications that anyone had been hit by bullets. A man who appeared to be in his late 30s was bleeding from the nose. He said that he had been watching his girlfriend’s daughter play softball and that after the game exchanged words with the large crowd of males who crowded around his pickup truck, which was parked facing Fannon Field’s right field, between the fence and the asphalt road that runs past the train.

The man said that one of the young males jumped into the back of his truck and then climbed onto the roof. When the man was trying to get the male off the top of his truck two other young males blindsided him with their fists. He said that the whole group then moved north between Fannon Field and neighboring Redbird A Field, at which point the two shots were fired.

Police called an ambulance to have the victim examined, but he had already determined that his nose was not broken and he did not go to BMH-GT.

The incident happened shortly after games ended at Redbird A and Fannon Fields. Girls 13-15 had been playing on Redbird Aand 7-year-olds had been playing coach-pitch ball on Fannon Field. The lights were still on at the Redbird/Fannon complex when the incident occurred. It is park policy to leave those lights on until the games in the lower part of the park are over.

Police reportedly have received information about the identity of the shooter, but he has not been found yet. No casings were found and no weapon has been recovered.

CLRA Director Roger Short said that Police Dept. Reserve officers ordinarily patrol the park on game nights but that none have been coming since the season began two weeks ago. He said that he met with Chief St. John and that the Reserves should be there this weekend. [The Reserves have been working a lot on regular shifts, because of the shortage of regular officers, and they were out in force at last weekend’s Market Street Festival. Ed.]

The Frank P. Phillips Memorial YMCA held its annual meeting April 25 at the Trotter Center. Two hundred and sixty people were served at the banquet and a silent auction raised more than $4,000 for YMCA programs.

TOP LEFT: At the banquet, Gen. Shields Sims became the first inductee into the YMCA Hall of Fame. He has been a member of the board of directors/trustees for more than 50 years and is still an active member.

YMCA Director Charlie Box said that Gen. Sims’s contribution as Chairman of the Camp Henry Pratt Committee “has been especially significant.”

Gen. Sims is pictured with members of his family who were present at the banquet: daughter Carley Page and her husband, Tommy, Gen. Sims’s wife, Beth, Gen. Sims, daughter Labette and daughter DeMaris.

RIGHT: Black Hawk Down hero Army Sgt. Matt Eversman (Ret.) spoke at the banquet.

He is pictured with Randy Jones, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer of the City of West Point, who was a chief warrant officer in his unit in Somalia.

BOTTOM LEFT: Nono and Burnette Avakian hosted Sgt. Eversman at their home, Shadowlawn, during his stay in Columbus.

The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science Band and Choir just returned from a trip to Branson, Mo. The groups performed at the Welk Theater as an opening act for the Rankin Brothers Show.

While in Branson the group also spent a day at The Silver Dollar City Theme Park. The groups will perform Saturday, May 10 at 2:00 p.m. at the Waverly Marina (on the west bank of the Tenn-Tom near Waverley Mansion)—the performance is free and open to the public.

Area students who are members of the MSMS Performance Ensembles are Tommy Doughty, McGinty Chilcutt (pictured), Jamie Elsmore, Aynsley Wright, Chris Cunningham and Michael Conner of Columbus and Emily Tuten of West Point and Ann Marie Picone of Starkville.

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