Albany Police Department investigating vehicle hijacking, aggravated assault

ALBANY — A vehicle was hijacked and a house was impacted by gunfire on Sunday, reports from the Albany Police Department said.

Contact was made at 11:16 a.m. with the victim of the hijacking at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital. The victim said that between 2:30-3 a.m. he was riding around in his gray Pontiac Grand Prix on the 200 block of Merritt Street when he made a left turn from the intersection of Don Cutler Sr. Drive and Clark Avenue.

“(The victim) advised as he traveled up the road that the Coats and Clark factory was on his left,” a police report narrative written by reporting officer Jamal Baisden said. “(The victim) stated as he proceeded around the curve he saw a dark-colored vehicle with the hood up and it appear(ed) they needed help. (The victim) advised he stopped and made contact with two (men) and asked if they needed help.

“(The victim) stated one of the (men) approached his driver side door and the other approached the passenger side door. (The victim) advised the (man) on the driver side pointed a black in color handgun at him demanded his money and his car. (The victim) advised he could see down the muzzle of the handgun.”

The victim said the men opened his driver door and pulled him out. He said he tussled with two of them for a moment before they threw him to the ground and took his car. He said he’d had the car only three days and that it had a used car drive-out tag.

He said he does not know the men but remembers they had on blue jean pants.

“(The victim) advised the reason it took him so long to call the police was because his driver’s license, phone and brown wallet were inside the vehicle. (The victim) stated he was scared they might come back and do more harm to him,” Baisden wrote. “Dawson advised he had $95 cash and his pay card inside the vehicle.

“(The victim) stated during the tussle he injured his left hand and arm.”

The victim had a soft cast placed on his left hand that went up to his elbow. Baisden asked the medical staff about his injured left hand and arm, and the doctor said his left hand was broken from his finger just right of his pinkie finger.

Baisden wrote that a lookout was given for the vehicle with the information provided by the victim. The case was forwarded to investigators.

At 10:35 p.m. on Sunday, a report show APD officers responded to the area of Avalon Avenue and Elm Street in reference to charge of discharging firearms. There, they found a home that had been hit by gunfire.

“Dispatch advised that they received several calls from the area in reference to shots being fired,” a narrative from reporting officer Thomas Perry said. “Upon arrival in the area, I got out of my patrol vehicle and began walking on Elm Street from Gillespie Avenue and Avalon Avenue.”

Perry said in the report that the clothing from a group of people in the area suggested they were members of a criminal street gang. He asked them if they had heard any shots being fired in the area.

“They all pointed south and said unknown subjects were shooting down there,” Perry wrote in the report. “I continued to walk south when a black male stated that the house on the corner had been shot.”

Perry went to the location, on the 1500 block of Avalon Avenue and made contact with the resident. A woman said her house had been shot.

“She allowed me inside the home and led me to the northeast bedroom,” Perry wrote. “Inside the room, a (woman) was laying on the bed. I observed approximately four to five bullet holes in the wall of the north side of the residence.

“(The woman on the bed) stated that she was not injured. She stated that she was asleep in the bed and was awakened by the shooting.”

Perry spoke with others at the residence, and nobody appeared to be injured. He said in the report that he went back outside and began searching for shell casings or any other evidence on the north side of the residence, and he located shell casings in a nearby alley, in a yard and on Elm Street.

“There were several subjects still in the yard, but they all stated they were in the house when the shots were fired and did not know anything, or how all the casings ended up in that location,” the report from Perry said.

A subject was also determined to be shooting at an unknown vehicle. The case was still active at the time of the report.

Gypsy Crow