Terry Randle Jr. was supposed to be leaving this week for college in Missouri on a football scholarship.
Instead, his family will be making arrangements for his funeral after the 18-year-old Amanda Elzy High School graduate died Monday from gunshot wounds he suffered two days earlier in a dramatic mid-day shooting involving two cars traveling along U.S. 82.
As of Monday afternoon, the persons responsible for the slaying remained at large.
Morris Bush, Randle’s football coach at Elzy, described his former player as “an all-around fun-loving guy.”
“He was always kidding around, joking around. But when it was time to get serious, he knew when to shut if off,” said Bush.
“He was a great kid to be around. Everybody loved him.”
According to witnesses, around noon Saturday, dozens of shots were fired as the Chevrolet Impala Randle was driving and another vehicle, a black Kia Optima, traveled east on U.S. 82, starting about a block from the intersection with West Claiborne Avenue. Shell casings and witness statements indicated that the gunfire from the Optima was coming from a semi-automatic rifle, according to Greenwood Police Chief Terrence Craft.
At some point, Randle’s car veered onto the frontage road as the gunfire continued. That’s when, investigators believe, the passenger in Randle’s car, his 23-year-old brother, Jacori Randle, exited the vehicle and returned fire with a .40-caliber handgun.
The brothers were both shot, and the vehicle they were in ended up driving down the embankment near the entrance to the Hinman Bridge, while the other vehicle continued driving eastward away from the scene.
The brothers were taken from the scene by ambulance. Terry Randle was later transported to the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he died Monday afternoon, according to Leflore County Coroner Debra Sanders. She said he had been shot three times, with the wound to his head proving fatal.
Jacori Randle was taken Saturday to the Elvis Presley Trauma Center in Memphis, where he was treated for non-life-threatening wounds to an arm and a leg, according to Craft. The older brother was subsequently released from the hospital.
No arrests had been made as of Monday afternoon. Craft said police are looking for two suspects. He said the Optima they were in was bearing a paper license tag, possibly indicating that it had been recently purchased.
Mike Turner, the retired owner of Turner Auto Group who was helping out Saturday at the used car dealership near where the shooting occurred, estimated that 50 to 60 bullets were fired.
“I could hear the bullets hitting the building, hitting the tin. They were just spraying it,” he said.
At least a half-dozen units from the Greenwood Police Department and the Leflore County Sheriff’s Department were dispatched to the crime scene. Officers taped off a block of the frontage road, and six shell casings were marked near where the frontage road intersects with West Claiborne Avenue.
Terry Randle was a three-sport athlete at Amanda Elzy, playing basketball and baseball as well as football. His top sport was football, and he received a scholarship to play this coming fall at Culver Stockton College in Canton, Missouri, an NAIA school.
Bush said he talked with Randle nearly daily, and Randle would fill his former football coach in on how he was working out to get ready for his new team.
Randle played quarterback his freshman and sophomore years at Elzy. The COVID-19 pandemic canceled his junior season, and then Randle lost his starting job at quarterback after dislocating his kneecap last summer. He handled the setback well, though, Bush said. “Once he got fully healthy, he came back and he filled in wherever he was needed — linebacker, tight end, fullback, he played it all.”
Randle is the sixth homicide victim in Leflore County this year, the fourth by gunfire, according to the Commonwealth’s records.
The frequency of violent deaths of young men is troubling, Bush said. He recalled that last year another of his former players, Artravius Gillis, was shot to death a couple of weeks after graduating.
“You kind of hold your breath when you’re out of school and away from the school, just praying that everybody makes it back safely to school, because you never know what happens once you get to the street,” the football coach said.
“It’s just sad What can we do? That’s the question.”
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
