TIFTON — Police are investigating the Thursday armed robbery of a convenience store, shots fired in a mobile home park and an incident at a convenience store that ended with a man being arrested on weapon-related charges.

A Tifton police officer was dispatched at 11:07 p.m. Wednesday to Captain’s Point Mobile Home Park, 310 Old Omega Road to reports that shots had been fired. When he arrived, he was met by a man said someone shot from Old Omega Road, and hit his residence. The man said he was standing outside his mobile home when he heard the shooting and stepped out into the row. He said he saw the offender shooting at him and backed back behind the mobile home.

A woman was inside a nearby mobile home with her two children and a man, who was playing a video game, when the shooting started. The officer’s report said the man stepped outside and saw someone shooting and located two bullet holes in the side of the mobile home. Once back inside the mobile home, the man told the officer, he was able to located a hole in an interior wall that contained a bullet.

Two Tifton police officers arrived at the Lil Pantry, 1302 S. Central Ave., at 12:56 p.m. Wednesday after someone anonymously reported that a man believed to be carrying a gun was walking into the store. The caller described the man as wearing baggy long black shorts and a gray hooded jacket. The officer wrote in his report another officer arrived at the scene and made contact with three men in a white Chrysler outside the store.

One of the officers wrote that he approached the man who was wearing the black baggy shorts and gray jacket as the man attempted to walk out of the store. He wrote that the suspect had a large bulge in his right rear pants pocket and that the outline of the object appeared to be a weapon of some sort. The officer stated in his report that he attempted to retrieve the object from the man, but the man pushed his hand away and tried to escape the officer’s grasp. The officer and an agent with the Tift County Sheriff’s Department cuffed the man and the officer was able to retrieve the gun — a black and silver Bersa .380 caliber semi-automatic handgun — from the suspect’s pocket.

Javorris Range, 22, 1414 Prince Ave., was then arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a pistol without a license and misdemeanor obstruction of an officer. He was transported to the Tift County jail. According to the officer, Range complained later that he had swallowed some Ecstasy pills at the jail. According to the report, he was transported to Tift Regional Medical Center to have his stomach pumped. He was later transported to Georgia Southwestern State Hospital by Tift County Sheriff’s officials.

At 12:36 a.m. Thursday, an officer was dispatched to Flash Foods, 802 W. Seventh St., to reports that the store had been robbed.

According to the officer’s report, an employee of the store told him that two black males wearing blue and white horizontally striped Polo shirts had taken cash from the register and fled across the parking lot toward Ole Times Country Buffet. He described one of the men as being between 5-foot-6 inches and 5-foot-8, weighing 160 to 170 pounds and approximately 30 years old, who was also wearing a black “do-rag” on his head. The other suspect was described as being around 5-foot-10, and weighing between 250 and 260 pounds, in his 30s with some gray hair in his mustache.

The employee said one of the men jumped over the counter and demanded money from the register and threatened to cut the employee if he didn’t comply with his demands. The employee told the officer that he opened the register and the offender grabbed money and both suspects left the store and ran east.



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