Columbus mayor calls upon teachings of MLK following fatal weekend shootings
Columbus’ homicide toll for this year more than doubled within 24 hours as three people fatally were shot in unrelated incidents Friday and Saturday.
The latest victim was 21-year-old Cross Henderson, shot in the lower back during a reported home invasion early Saturday in the 8000 block of Upatoi Ridge, where Henderson’s mother lived, said Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan.
Henderson arrived at Piedmont Columbus Regional at 1:31 a.m. and was pronounced dead there at 2:07 a.m., Bryan said.
Henderson, whose home address was listed as Flatrock Road, was in the Upatoi Ridge residence with his brother and a friend when five intruders broke in, authorities said.
Upatoi Ridge is off Macon Road near McKee Road in the Upatoi area of east Columbus.
Just hours before Henderson’s assault, a 13-year-old boy was hit in the chest with a shotgun blast outside his home in the 800 block of 32nd Avenue, off Illges Road in the Carver Heights area, Bryan said.
Born in February 2006, Jamareion Davis was only 13 years old, the coroner said. Davis was pronounced dead at Piedmont Columbus Regional at 7:59 p.m. Friday.
The third victim was Dorian Gibson, 50, shot multiple times in the torso in a parking lot at Warren Williams Homes, Bryan said.
Gibson reportedly was trying to break up a fight at the public housing complex, which is in midtown between Wynnton Road and 13th Street.
He was rushed to Piedmont Columbus Regional at 5:51 p.m. Friday and pronounced dead there at 6:46 p.m., Bryan said.
The three deaths upped Columbus’ 2020 homicide count to five from two. The others were:
- Javante Jackson, 26, found dead from a gunshot wound around 1:15 a.m. Jan. 1 at Elizabeth Canty Homes off Cusseta Road, where he was pronounced dead at 2:09 a.m. Two suspects, ages 16 and 17, have been charged in that case.
- Christopher Ratledge, 47, shot dead Jan. 11 by his 63-year-old wife Debbie, who afterward killed herself, the coroner said. The two, who were in the midst of a divorce, were pronounced dead at 10:22 a.m. in their Roanoke Drive home, Bryan said.
Mayor responds
Speaking Monday at Columbus’ Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast, Mayor Skip Henderson noted the abrupt rash of gun violence that was dominating the local news here and in neighboring jurisdictions.
“In our tri-cities, we have gone through an unusual amount of violence over the last couple of weeks,” he said. “And I cannot ignore that as we celebrate the life of a man who devoted his energies, his time and his love to nonviolent change.”
He said “the anger, the frustration and the sorrow” he feels each time Police Chief Ricky Boren calls to tell him “another young life has been wiped off this earth” is tempered by King’s example.
“Dr. King did say that it is through unarmed truth and unconditional love that will give us the last word in reality, and because of that, right temporarily defeated is always stronger than evil triumphant, and I believe that,” Henderson said.
“I believe that these communities that we live in, Columbus, Phenix City, Fort Benning, up into Harris County, Chattahoochee County, the entire region, we are better than that, and we will overcome some of these challenges that we are facing, but only if we do it the way our region always has done it: That’s to do it banded together.”
Columbus had 41 homicides in 2019; 34 in 2018; and 43 in 2017.
This story was originally published January 20, 2020 at 1:58 PM.