A 39-year-old Tifton police officer shot in the neck Saturday night while on patrol is in good condition and expected to be released from Tift Regional Medical Center soon.

According to a press release issued by the Tifton Police Dept., Officer Eddie Bailey was checking property at the Sun Mart convenience store on South Central Avenue at approximately 9:47 p.m. Saturday when he observed a person wearing a mask in the alley behind Willis Country Meats. As he began driving toward the person, another person approached his patrol car and fired one shot into the patrol car through the passenger’s side.

The bullet struck Bailey in the neck. Unconfirmed reports are that the radio device he had slipped to his uniform on his shoulder deflected the bullet and that he radioed requesting assistance, stating that he had been shot while chasing one of the suspects.

The offenders fled on foot but one of them, Curtis Jermaine Akins, 25, 515 Elm St., Apt. B, was arrested at midnight on Elm Lane and booked into the Tift County Jail at 3 a.m. Sunday. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was called in to investigate the incident, and agents were conducting interviews in Tifton Tuesday afternoon. It was unknown at presstime whether the second offender believed to be involved in the shooting incident had been arrested or what charges had been filed against Akins.

Tifton Police Chief Jim Smith said Bailey had been with the TPD for eight years.

Several other incidents, including an armed robbery and an assault on police officers, were reported over the weekend.

• Employees of The Mystik convenience store at 1020 Ferry Lake Road reported at 9 p.m. Friday that two black male suspects entered the store and robbed employees at gunpoint, taking an unknown amount of cash with them. The witnesses were unsure if the suspects fled on foot or used a getaway vehicle. Detectives with the TPD continue to investigate the case.

• The Tift County Sheriff’s Office arrested Marcus Demond Hurley, 23, 411 N. Virginia Ave., E-2, Saturday and charged him with the March 19 armed robbery of a 22-year-old Fitzgerald man. According to the incident report, the victim reported at 10 p.m. March 19 that two unknown black males robbed him at gunpoint at 3119 S. Central Ave. The offenders stole $600 in cash and an estimated $4,000 worth of jewelry from the man.

• Members of the Department of Motor Carrier Compliance conducting a road check Friday night in the area of Ty Ty-Whiddon Mill Road arrested a man and charged him with multiple counts after he failed to stop and allegedly came close to running over agents and patrol cars. Once he was stopped, Jermaine Johnson, 25, 1659 Joe Lawrence Road, Ashburn, was charged with aggravated assault on a peace officer, felony obstruction with force, possession of cocaine, fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer and failure to follow the authority of a person directing traffic.

• At 11:29 p.m. Friday, TPD officers Mike Gaskins and Jay Klug were on foot patrol in the area of 300 block of Old Omega Road when the officers heard three shots fired in their direction. A short time later, according to the report, the officers made contact with a man who told them that a black male shot several times toward 319 Old Omega Road, aiming at a particular apartment. The officers located a single shot that had struck the residence. The bulled traveled through two bedrooms, a hallway and a bathroom before lodging in the shower stall. The apartment was occupied by a 77-year-old woman at the time.

• At 12:08 a.m. Saturday, Gaskins and Klug got out of their patrol unit at 319 S. Ridge Ave. to make contact with Damian Louis Brantley, 25, 720 Timmons Drive, Apt. 21. Brantley was standing near a large shrub and Gaskins, according to the report, shined his flashlight in Brantley’s direction. Gaskins wrote that Brantley released an unknown object from his left and into the shrub. Klug secured the item, an orange pill bottle containing 39 white rocks believed to be crack cocaine. The officers also located a Beretta .22 caliber handgun with three rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.

When officers searched Brantley they found three small bags of suspected marijuana and $158.85 in cash in his pants’ pockets. Brantley was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

• At 10:15 p.m. Thursday night, a 20-year-old man reported that he arrived home at Brookfield Mews Apartments when a man approached him and said that he had heard the victim had been talking about him. The victim told the man he hadn’t and then the victim thought the suspect was going to give him a high five but instead, the suspect swung at him but missed hitting him. The victim told the officer the swung back and hit the offender.

Then, the victim said, eight other people came from around another building and confronted him. One of the suspects threw a bicycle behind him, which caused him to lose his balance. The man said it was then that all of the suspects “jumped him.” The man reported that one of the suspects took his gold necklace, valued at $500, and a gold charm in the shape of Jesus and valued at $480. The victim suffered a large knot on his head and a swollen lip from the beating.

The same man reported at 11:20 p.m. that he was leaving the apartment complex when a black male wearing a white T-shirt, who was believed to be part of the previous altercation, ran from the dark and began firing a gun at the victim’s car while he was traveling down Tifton-Eldorado Road. The man said no bullets hit him or the car and that approximately five shots were fired.