Murphy – An Atlanta man has been charged with four counts of attempted murder after police said he fired an AK-47 into an apartment on Cool Springs Street on Thursday night.
Jalen Bichette Jones, 25, was arrested by Atlanta police Sunday and is being held in their custody awaiting extradition to Murphy.
“He watched this apartment (one day) for like six hours,” Murphy assistant chief Dustin Smith said. “Then (Thursday) night, apparently he drove through the apartment complex, came back, got out of the vehicle and fired an AK-47 into this apartment and fled.”
Endicia Lloyd lives at the apartment with her fiancé as well as her 3-year-old and 4-year-old daughters. She said she had only been off of work for about 45 minutes when she heard the gunshots about 10:30 p.m. No one was injured in the shooting.
“My fiancé was sitting on the brown couch where (a bullet) came through, almost, and I grabbed him and we put ourselves down to the floor,” she said.
Lloyd said it’s not unusual for her daughters to be scared by loud noises, such as thunder. She looked up to see them standing at the top of the upstairs steps.
“I grabbed them from out of there and had them in the bathroom and we were just sitting there,” Lloyd said. “There were still shots going off while we were in the bathroom.”
The brick walls of the building feature multiple indentations where they stopped bullets from penetrating the apartment. According to information provided by the Murphy Police Department, officers recovered 20 shell casings from a 7.62 caliber rifle at the scene.
“Responding officers discovered that multiple occupied residences and a vehicle had been struck by rounds fired from a firearm and the suspect had already fled the scene in a dark Nissan four door car,” according to a statement by the police department. “During the course of the investigation the suspect was identified as Jalen Jones, who has a residence listed out of Atlanta.”
Lloyd said she met Jones through a friend last summer, but does not know why he would open fire on her apartment. She said she is happy that he has been apprehended, after she spent a few sleepless nights alone at her home.
“I have no dealings with this person, I just have family and friends that have acquaintances with him,” she said. “It’s more involved than what I know, and every day something new is coming to me.”
Lloyd’s car, a recently purchased 2011 Hyundai Genesis, was also damaged in the shooting and she had not yet purchased insurance for the vehicle. She said he was initially upset when her fiancé told her about the damage to the car, but she later calmed down and realized that any material possessions can be replaced.
“He was like, ‘Baby, they shot the car,’ and I’m like, ‘They shot the car?’ ” Lloyd said. “We just got that car, $300 two-week payments on that, and I seen all the oil leaking out of it, so I’m upset, I’m screaming and yelling.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I am going to get down to the bottom of it because I and my family and my household has nothing to do with whatever is going on with (the suspect), or the people he hangs out with around here. I want to get down to the bottom of this as much as anyone else.”