Macon teen shot at Academy Sports parking lot found mortally wounded near Southwest High
A Macon teenager who was shot in a parking lot at Academy Sports & Outdoors on Eisenhower Parkway late Tuesday was later found mortally wounded in a parking lot outside nearby Southwest High School, authorities said.
The incident was reported at about 10:30 p.m., according to a statement from Bibb County sheriff’s officials.
The victim, Tavias La’zhae Williams, 15, was shot outside the sporting goods outlet at 1689 Eisenhower Parkway and then found just less than a mile to the south down Canterbury Road in a parking lot at the high school, the statement said.
Williams was later pronounced dead at a downtown hospital.
Circumstances surrounding the deadly episode were not immediately known, nor was it clear how Williams made it from the shooting scene to the school’s parking lot.
A 20-year-old suspect, Tajiri Antwaun Harris, of Macon, was later arrested in connection with Williams’ slaying, officials said. Harris was booked into the county jail at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Harris, charged with murder and three counts of aggravated assault, had been taken into custody at his home, officials said, which according to jail records was on Kevin Drive in northeast Macon.
Williams’ slaying was the county’s 19th homicide of 2022.
Seventeen of the deaths have been the result of gunshot wounds. Six of the 19 violent deaths happened in January. Six more, including the shooting death of a Florida man by police along Interstate 75, were in February. And four were in March. Williams’ death was the third this month and the second in two days.
There were 54 homicides countywide last year.
This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 8:35 AM.