Gunshots heard on Alder Street

Staff reports

TIFTON April 23, 2008 09:58 pm

— A woman who was lying on her couch with her child late Tuesday night told police the two fell to the floor when they heard gunshots fired close by. Another woman in a separate incident was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a knife.
According to the Tifton Police Department’s incident report, a woman who lives in the 700 block of Alder Street (Belleview Circle Apartments, Tifton Housing Authority) told an officer at 11 p.m. that she and her child were inside the residence and lying on the couch in the living room when she heard five gunshots. She said she and her child fell to the floor of the living room. The woman also told the officer she heard two of the shots hit the front of the house.
The officer arrived and didn’t see anyone around the residence, but he found three empty shell casings from a 9 mm in various locations, including one in the vinyl siding of the house. The officer collected the casings and took pictures of the scene.
In a separate incident, a 51-year-old woman was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a knife. Officers responded to 728 Duggan St. just after midnight to reports that a man had been cut on his hand. The victim, 44-year-old Anthony Mason, told the officers who arrived that he had just gotten off work and that he and his friend and co-worker had gone to a party in the Phillipsburg area. He said he returned home to his residence and his girlfriend, Kim Turner Howard, 51, was waiting in her car for him.
Mason stated that Howard drove him around and they began arguing. He said they pulled over at Matt Wilson Elementary School and Howard pulled out a knife and started trying to cut him. He said he grabbed the knife and, in doing so, cut his hand on the blade. Mason told the officers that he was scared, got out of Howard’s car and ran back to his residence. He then dialed E-911.
When officers arrived at Howard’s home, one of them knocked on her door and asked her if she would walk with him to the front of her house. An officer asked her if she had seen Mason that night and she affirmed that she had. She told the officer that she and Mason had gotten into an argument. She denied pulling a knife on Mason and told the officer that she did hit him with her car door as he jumped out of the vehicle. Officers wrote that Howard had blood on her hands and arms.
Photographs were taken as evidence. According to the report, the investigation didn’t reveal that any substance abuse contributed to the incident.