Albany-Dougherty Drug Unit officer fired upon early Saturday

ALBANY — An Albany-Dougherty Drug Unit police officer working a part-time job was fired upon early Sunday morning on Ebony Lane.

An Albany Police Department incident report released Monday morning stated that the officer, who works with the Albany-Dougherty Drug Unit and Dougherty County Police Department, sustained a minor injury to his arm from auto window glass that shattered when he was shot at.

APD Officer Lataevias Jackson, who responded to the shooting call, said an individual was taken to the Law Enforcement Center. There was no reason stated why the male was taken to the LEC. Phyllis Banks, a spokeswoman for APD, said the person was questioned and released with no charges filed. Banks said Monday that “no additional arrests are expected but additional charges are anticipated in the case.”

According to the report, the officer was working a part-time job as DCP “courtesy officer” early Saturday morning when he spotted three males standing in front of South Lake Apartments at 541 Ebony Lane. Witness accounts indicate the incident occurred around 2 a.m.

The officer “stated that he backed up his vehicle to make contact, so he rolled down his window and suddenly he saw a red beam,” Jackson stated in the report. “Before he knew what was happening, he heard shots soon after.”

Jackson told Albany police he was unsure how many shots were fired, the report says. He drove west on Ebony and sought safety at June Bugs Grocery, where APD officers were dispatched at 2:20 a.m.

“I observed several bullet holes in the windshield and the whole passenger side of the vehicle, along with the strong odor of gas, which I observed leaking from up under the vehicle,” Jackson wrote.

The vehicle the ADDU officer was driving was an unmarked police vehicle, but the officer said everyone in the area was familiar with it and knew it was driven by police, the report stated.

Jackson said the ADDU officer told him he had not been hit by a bullet, but the APD officer observed blood on his right elbow and called dispatch to send EMS. The officer later told Jackson that he had not been hit by a bullet and the injury apparently stemmed from vehicle glass broken during the shooting.

The officer’s only description of the trio was that they were black males, and one was wearing a white shirt and black shorts. In addition to APD, officers with DCP and the Dougherty County Sheriff’s Office responded to the call, the report said. A search of the block yielded no shell casings.

Jackson said he made contact with three residents of the area. An elderly woman told him she was frightened and wouldn’t answer the door when someone began knocking on it. A man told the officer he heard “seven to eight shots” just after 2 a.m. but did not look outside.

Jackson also made contact with a second woman who said she did not report the incident to police, but that someone she at first thought was her nephew had banged on her front door shortly after 2:10 a.m. The man she spotted, who she described as a black male wearing a black shirt and jeans, got into an orange auto that looked like an earlier model Eclipse and left the area with two other males, she said in the report. She said she knew there were at least three in the car because two ran to it from her house and got in on the passenger side.

After Jackson reported the information to APD Investigator Nicovian E. Price, the investigator said he spotted an orange Nissan behind an apartment in the 500 block of Ebony Lane, the report said. Jackson asked dispatch to contact the owner, Jacquelyn Hicks Tumblin, who said the car had been in the possession of her grandson, who had left her location about 30 minutes earlier. Jackson said Tumblin said her grandson wasn’t supposed to have the car, that she did not know anyone on Ebony Lane and that she was en route to pick it up. The car was listed as evidence on the APD report.