Tifton man hit, robbed at gunpoint

By Angie Thompson/senior reporter

TIFTON July 24, 2008 06:50 pm

— A 51-year-old Tifton man reported to Tifton police late Tuesday that he was robbed at gunpoint and hit in the head by two strangers as he walked along Poplar Street.
In an apparently unrelated incident, police also responded Tuesday night to reports of gun shots at Brookfield Mews Apartments off Tifton-Eldorado Road.
A man who lives on Duggan Street told police, who arrived to find the man bleeding from his head, that he was walking east on Poplar Street and taking a short cut through the parking lot at Lil’s Bar when he passed two black men who were walking northwest from the parking lot.
The man said that when he entered a driveway off Poplar Street, the two men got his attention by saying “hey,” and then one of them pointed a black semi-automatic handgun at him and told him to get on the ground.
The man said he complied. According to the man, the assailants then searched his pocket and pulled out a pack of Checker’s cigarettes with only two cigarettes left in the box. The victim told police that the man who had the gun hit him in the head with it, called him a name and then criticized him for being “broke.”
The victim said the men ran to a gold-colored sedan, possibly a Ford Taurus, that was waiting for them at the intersection of Poplar Street and Woodlawn Avenue. Once the men were inside the vehicle, the victim reported, the vehicle left traveling south on Woodlawn Avenue.
The victim was transported to Tift Regional Medical Center for treatment of his head wound and, according to a hospital spokesman, was released Wednesday.
In an unrelated incident Tuesday, police responded to reports of gunfire in the area of Brookfield Mews Apartments off Tifton-Eldorado Road. When officers responded, they found three bicycles left abandoned beside Building 8. They also found a 9 mm shell casing nearby.
Witnesses told police that the three males who were riding the bicycles earlier were shooting at a white Honda that was backing out of a parking space. That vehicle had left the scene before officers arrived. The witnesses said the three males who fired the shots fled in a black Honda.

To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.