Five shot, wounded after argument outside Bibb nightclub

Five people were shot and wounded, three outside a west Bibb County nightclub, early Sunday after a fistfight — about how slick a car looked or, possibly, a beef about a burglary — sparked separate rounds of gunfire.

Shots broke out about 2:50 a.m. in the parking lot of Scarlett Carsons at 4173 Cavalier Drive, just west of Interstate 475 off Mercer University Drive, Bibb sheriff’s Capt. Mike Smallwood said.

Three men, who apparently weren’t involved in the fray and didn’t know one another, were wounded, he said.

“From what we’re understanding, it’s supposed to be over a car looking good or not looking good,” Smallwood said, adding that someone may have slapped someone else and touched off the gunplay. “It was chaos then.”

He said there was “a good crowd” outside the establishment at the time. Soon after deputies arrived there, Macon police were dispatched to the scene of another shooting, one apparently triggered by the outburst outside the club, less than two miles away.

In that incident, two more men were shot and wounded.

According to a news release issued by Macon police, three suspects in a car raced away from Scarlett Carsons and into the city limits near Log Cabin Drive, apparently in pursuit of two men: “The suspects were speeding to catch the victims and began shooting at them in the Mercer University Drive/Columbus Road area.”

The men, Sidney Bishop and Jadarius Shinholster, both 21, were shot in the back, the Macon police statement said. Their injuries were not thought to be life-threatening. Their assailants, believed to have been involved in the first shooting, were said to be riding in a gray Nissan, either an Altima or a Maxima, with chrome rims. They remained at large Sunday evening.

The three victims in the shooting outside Scarlett Carsons, all from Macon, were identified by deputies as Marvin King Jr., 25, Willie Curry, 23, and Kendrick Hill, 24.

Smallwood said King, shot in the midsection, suffered the most serious wound. Hill was grazed in the side, Smallwood said.

“We’re gonna try to unravel it all,” Smallwood said more than 15 hours after the incidents, which investigators were still sorting through.

In recent months, local politicians and law enforcement officials have prioritized trying to curtail ruckuses that spill over from or occur near nightclub gatherings.

David Reise, a local chiropractor and former Macon police officer who owns the year-and-a-half-old Scarlett Carsons, said the incident was the first shooting episode that the club or its periphery has had.

“We don’t cater to thugs. Our DJs dont play the controversial music that ramps people up — eastside, westside, southside — we don’t allow that to happen,” Reise said. “We’ve just never had any problems. ... All I want is safety.”

He said he was told by investigators that a trouble-making patron, who had been mouthing off to club security staffers and, in the process, been pepper-sprayed, may have played a role in triggering the gunfire outside.

Reise said a car with a few men may have cruised through the area in search of someone who’d broken into one of their apartments and somehow crossed paths with the trouble-making patron out on the street and started a fight. He said he doesn’t think the shooter or shooters had been in the club.

“Somebody got ripped off and somebody came out looking (for the culprits),” Reise said. “Those cats came out looking and it happened.”

Reise said the investigating deputies at first thought the incident was set off by three guys in a car on the street outside telling the mouthing-off, pepper-sprayed patron, “Hey, I can jack your car.” But later on Sunday, Reise said, it appeared the patron may have been the one the armed trio were seeking in connection with a break-in.

Reise said an investigator praised his club’s staff for its cooperation in the case. Reise said, “I said, ‘Man, you don’t understand. I want this to be the safest place around.’’’

To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397

This story was originally published November 15, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Five shot, wounded after argument outside Bibb nightclub."