SubscriptionsClassifiedsGeneral PaymentsPacket #854 - November 19, 2009Teen shot twice in leg
in 7th Ave. drive-by
Shooting followed disturbance
at CHS basketball game
Amarcus Patmon is wheeled to an ambulance about 1:30 a.m. last Saturday
morning on 7th Ave. North near Military Road. Patmon, 18, had been shot
twice in the right leg while he walked on 7th Ave. He took refuge at 1110
7th Ave. North.
An 18-year-old Columbus male was wounded in a drive-by shooting on 7th Ave. North early last Saturday morning. A suspect was arrested within the hour and three more suspects were arrested in the following days, the third yesterday morning at Columbus High School.
The victim, Amarcus Patmon, suffered a wound to the right knee and the right calf area.
He was treated and released at BMH-GT.
The shooting occurred about 50 yards from the spot where 18-year-old Christopher Easterwood was wounded in a
drive-by shooting on September 17. People involved in both shootings are thought to have also been involved in a
shoot-em-up at a teen party in West Point earlier this year.
About 45 minutes after Amarcus Patmon was shot on 7th Ave. North early
last Saturday morning, police and deputies stopped suspected shooter
Joseph Allen Rush on 14th Ave. North near Railroad St. Officer William
Thrasher and Deputy Ivan Bryan are pictured with Rush.
Police believe that last Saturday morning’s shooting had its immediate roots in a disturbance
earlier that night in the Columbus High School parking lot during a basketball game. Police were
dispatched to the school at the request of school security officers when a fight appeared to be brewing
among a large crowd of young males in the parking lot. Police stopped some cars leaving the campus and
two pistols (a semi-automatic
Rush protested that he had nothing to
do with a shooting but officers pointed
to an empty cartridge casing lodged in
the gutter between the trunk and rear
window of Rush’s car. Rush was placed
under arrest.
and a Western-style revolver) were found under police cars, apparently slid there by some of the youths. No arrests were made, reportedly because school security officers would not leave the campus participate with CPD officers in the investigation. Police had parents come to the scene and take charge of the youths.
A few hours later, at 1:11 a.m. Saturday morning, E-911 received the report of a drive-by shooting at 1110 7th Ave. North. Several police officers were near the Trotter Center when the report was broadcast (they were questioning some young people suspected of stealing streets signs near Carrier Lodge). They raced to the scene of the shooting.
Patmon had been shot in front of the home of Tammy Warren. She heard the shots and opened the door and
found Patmon wounded and seeking refuge. Warren did not know Patmon but let him into her house and called 911. Then, with advice from E-911 dispatchers, she applied a towel to Patmon’s wounds to control the bleeding.
Johnson
Veteran CPD Lt. Selvain McQueen was in charge of the shift (he was recently returned to Patrol along with other
veterans). Several LCSO deputies also responded. In a very short time police determined that the shots had come from a gold Chrysler. Officers remembered that a gold Chrysler had been involved in the incident at CHS a few hours earlier and Officer Wade Beard remembered the tag number of the car. Officers fanned out looking for suspects and the suspect car.
A few minutes before 2:00 a.m. McQueen was on Schoolhouse Ave. (east of Military Road) questioning a suspect
when the gold Chrysler passed him. He alerted other officers. The Chrysler went west to Military Road
and then north to 14th Ave., where it cut back east. As it turned east on 14th Ave. police cars and
LCSO cars were converging from several different directions. The car was stopped just west of
the railroad tracks.
Willis
Joseph Allen Rush was alone in the car. He got out protesting that he didn’t do anything, but Narcotics Agent Archie Williams noticed an empty shell casing lodged in the crevice between the car’s trunk and its rear window. Rush was immediately handcuffed and placed in a patrol car.
Police searched the path the Chrysler had taken looking for a gun but did not find one. They found a bullet hole in a car in front of Tammy Warren’s house.
Rush, 18, of 1425 Schoolhouse Ave., was charged with aggravated assault with a weapon.
Hairston
Monday evening CPD Investigators closed in on another suspect, Quinton Cortez Hairston. He was arrested on Hwy 45 North and charged with drive-by shooting.
Police were out in force Tuesday night and late that night Officer Andre Adams stopped a male on 20th St. near 7th Ave. North. It was Javarr Marquest Johnson, another of the drive-by suspects. Other officers, including investigators, converged on the scene and Johnson was taken into custody. Johnson, 18, of 504 20th St. North, is charged with drive-by shooting.
Yesterday morning a fourth suspect was arrested without incident at Columbus High School. He is Jameale Cortez Willis, 17, of 720 19th St. North. He is charged with drive-by shooting.
As of press time, no bonds or court dates had been set for the suspects.
Woman offers refuge
to teen shooting victim
When Amarcus Patmon was shot in the leg early last Saturday morning he staggered to the nearest house, 1110 7th St. North, the home of Tammy Warren. Warren was inside with her three grandchildren and heard the shots and heard someone shout, “This boy’s been shot!”
Warren opened the
door and saw Patmon, who she had seen around the neighborhood but did not know, coming up her front steps.
“I opened the door and let him in,” she told the Packet. “He was bleeding. I called 911 and the lady said to apply pressure to the wounds. I pulled a pant-leg up and used a towel to put pressure.” When she removed the towel to take Patmon’s shoe off she noticed that a bullet “had popped out onto the towel.”
Warren said, “He was in pain and saying it hurt and I said, ‘Just hold on, baby.’ He said he lived on Hwy 373 but I had seen him in the neighborhood.”
Warren said that when she saw Patmon wounded she thought it could have been her own son. “I’d want somebody to open the door for my child,” she said.
Warren said that she was told that Patmon had just left Winners Quick Stop across the street and that the car “came off the hill [to the west] and they went to shootin’.”
