LAGRANGE, Ga. — A man was arrested Wednesday in connection with three separate shootings that took place earlier in the day along Interstate 85 in Alabama and Georgia. One man was seriously wounded.
Jerel Raphael Brown of Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested in LaFayette, Alabama, after shootings were reported in Montgomery and Auburn in Alabama and near Hogansville, Georgia, according to sheriff’s deputies in Troup County, Georgia.
The Auburn Police Department said Brown has been charged with attempted murder and shooting into an unoccupied vehicle. He is being held without bond, the police department said.
Officials had asked people to look for a 1996 white Cadillac Fleetwood after three shootings were reported. In the Auburn shooting, a 45-year-old Prattville, Alabama, man was seriously wounded by a gunshot that officials said appeared to enter from the rear of the man’s vehicle. The victim was taken by helicopter to a Montgomery hospital.
A stretch of Interstate 85 in Auburn was closed for hours while police investigated.
No one was injured in the Georgia shooting. No details on the Montgomery shooting were immediately released.
Brown is charged in Georgia with aggravated assault, possessing a gun while committing a felony and first-degree criminal damage.
Deputies in western Georgia’s Troup County said they identified the suspect vehicle using a traffic camera, allowing information about the car to be broadcast around the region. Authorities said that led to a Chambers County, Alabama, sheriff’s deputy pulling Brown over and arresting him. Brown was later handed over to Auburn police.
Troup County Sheriff’s spokesperson Sgt. Stewart Smith said investigators can’t say at this time what motivated the shootings. He said that while Troup County has filed charges, he expected Brown would be jailed in Alabama and would be prosecuted first in that state.
