Greenwood police were busy over the weekend, responding to two early-morning drive-by shooting incidents — one which left a man wounded — and an armed robbery.
Around 2:12 a.m. Sunday, officers were dispatched to the McLaurin Street Park area because of reports of gunshots being fired, according to Police Chief Henry Purnell. Once on the scene, officers did not meet with witnesses.
However, they were quickly summoned to the Greenwood Leflore Hospital Emergency Room, where Artez Gray, 804 Martin St., was being treated for gunshot wounds to his lower abdomen, left buttocks and right hip, Purnell said.
Gray was listed in good condition at the hospital this morning.
When arriving at the hospital, detectives noticed a Chevy Impala with a bullet hole in the windshield parked outside. The vehicle is owned by Freddie Hill, a friend of Gray’s.
Gray told investigators that he was standing in front of his mother’s house in the 200 block of West McLaurin Street around 2 a.m. when someone started to shoot at him.
Hill told police that as Gray got out of the car and was walking toward the residence, an unknown vehicle, traveling east, came up with its back window down, the chief said.
Once Hill noticed his friend had been shot, he drove him to the hospital, Purnell said.
According to the incident report, 15 shell casings were recovered from the 200 and 300 blocks of West McLaurin Street.
In an unrelated incident, around 2 a.m. Sunday, police picked up two men — a 22-year-old and a 19-year-old — in connection with a shooting on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
The men, who claimed they were shooting at a man on a bike who fired on them first, had not been charged as of this morning in the case. The 22-year-old was being held in the Leflore County Jail, while the 19-year-old was released pending further investigation.
The bicyclist has not been identified. No one else was wounded in the incident, the chief said.
Police did recover four .380 caliber shell casings and one .25 caliber shell casing from the scene.
A Bryson .380 handgun was later recovered from the 22-year-old suspect’s car.
In the third incident, Purnell said, an armed robbery happened at around 10:50 p.m. Friday.
An attendant at the Delta Gas Station, 212 Mississippi 7 South, was held up by a hooded gunman.
The suspect was described as a dark-complected black male in his late teens with short hair. He was armed with a small handgun, possibly a .38 caliber revolver, the chief said.
Purnell said the robber took somewhere between $700 and $1,500 in cash from the station.
Once the robbery was complete, the man got in a small white pickup and drove west on Basket Street.
The victim told police the truck had a very loud exhaust system and its left rear brake light was out.
Although officers searched for the vehicle, they could not find it.
Police are in the process of examining the gas station’s security camera footage to possibly help identify the robber, Purnell said.
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
