Shootout: Man killed in gun battle early Saturday
By John Joyce
Published in News on August 9, 2015 1:50 AM
Full Size
News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
A sheet covers a car involved in a shooting on Royall Avenue early Saturday. One man was killed and another remains in critical condition after what police say was a confrontation between men in two cars.
With no suspects, no leads and no motive, the Goldsboro Police Department is asking for the community's assistance in solving an early Saturday morning shooting that left one Goldsboro man dead and another in critical condition.
Several other shootings around the city remain unsolved leaving investigators to weed out which of them, if any, are connected.
"We have run out of leads for the moment," Maj. Anthony Carmon said.
Tyron Kasheem Jones, 25, of 330 W. Pine St. was dead in his vehicle by the time police arrived on scene at Herman Street and Royall Avenue before 1 a.m. His black 1995 Toyota Camry somehow ended up on the railroad tracks just south of the intersection, facing north in the direction of Wayne Memorial Drive.
A passenger, Robert Lee Cole, 21, of Goldsboro, lay outside the vehicle suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Cole remained in critical condition Saturday at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville.
"We have an area where we found shell casings, which tells us the shooting was vehicle to vehicle," Carmon said.
The working theory is that the two cars -- Jones' Camry and the unknown suspects' vehicle -- exchanged gunfire as they traveled down Edgerton Street behind Goldsboro High School.
As Jones' vehicle came to Argo Street, he made a right turn and traveled across Atlantic Street and continued into the grass coming to rest over the railroad tracks south of Royall Avenue. He had been fatally shot.
One car after another arrived on scene to find the area taped off, the red and blue lights of fire trucks and police cars reflecting off the windows of neighboring houses.
Several drivers stopped their cars in the middle of the intersection and hopped out, heading straight for the victim's car with only loosely strung crime scene tape and a few officers to restrain them.
By then, white sheets draped over the roof of Jones' car shrouded visual confirmation of what friends and family already knew to be true.
"Just let me see my nephew," screamed one woman. "I want to see him and kiss him and tell him good-bye," she wailed.
The victim's mother, whose resolve could not mask her pain, pleaded with officers investigating the scene to hurry up and to remove her son's body from the vehicle.
Members of the crowd -- irate at the loss of their loved one and the manner in which he died -- vowed revenge.
"This is our neighborhood, not theirs," one man shouted pointing at police officers.
"What the hell are they even doing here? We'll take care of this. This is a family. This is Perfect Gang," he said.
Carmon said there was no evidence to either suggest or to rule out a gang connection.
"We often don't even hear about any of that until arrests are made and people start talking," he said.
Soon after, shots rang again out a few blocks away. A constant mist fell as one hour turned to two and then to three, the victims body still in the car.
When the time finally came and with firefighters and police busy holding up a sheet to block the crowd's view, one man strayed too close attempting to take video of EMS workers removing Jones' body from the car. Family and friends took exception.
A larger man snatched the younger man's phone and told him to "step off."
The young man reached for his phone, which wound up smashed on the pavement. The younger man received a punch to the head, forcing two police to intercede as a mob advanced on the young man.
Ultimately it was the aunt -- the woman heard earlier pleading for the opportunity to kiss her nephew good-bye -- who swooped in and led the videographer away before he suffered real injury. No arrests were made and the crowd soon simmered down.
A single shot was later heard off in the distance, sending a few members of the lingering crowd, which had by this point dwindled from 50 to a dozen, heading for home.
Jones' body was removed from his vehicle and loaded into a waiting ambulance at about 4 a.m. By 4:45, the scene was cleared.
In addition to the shell casings recovered in the street, a house in the 800 block of Argo Street was struck several times by bullets.