Father and son squabble turns ugly

Homepage

Related Photos

This is the Cotton Pointe home where a father and son squabble turned deadly Friday afternoon. The end result was the son being taken to a local hospital, while the father was airlifted to Macon. Angye Morrison/The Tifton Gazette

March 22, 2013

Father and son squabble turns ugly

Angye Morrison/Editor CNHI The Tifton Gazette Fri Mar 22, 2013, 06:48 PM EDT

TIFTON — A father and son squabble turned ugly Friday afternoon, ending with the son taken to a local hospital, and the father airlifted to Macon.

Tift County Sheriff’s officers were called to 96 Cotton Pointe Circle at 12:02 p.m. Friday after Lee Harris, 69, shot his son, David Harris, 37, then turned the gun on himself, according to neighbors. David’s wound ws in the upper arm, and was non-life threatening.

Lee shot himself in the abdomen and was treated on the scene by EMS personnel, according to a press release from the Tift County Sheriff’s Office. He was airlifted to a hospital in Macon, according to Tift County Sheriff Gene Scarbrough.

The father and son have been at odds for about a week now, according to Brenda Brooks and her mother-in-law, Martha Brooks, who live nearby. The Harrises have had numerous arguments, Brenda said, centering around David’s plans to marry a woman that his father did not want him to wed.

According to Brenda, David and his fiancee, whose name has not been released yet, had been living with Lee in his home. The couple moved in with other relatives directly across the street, but had left some of their possessions at Lee’s home.

As Lee prepared in recent days to pack his belongings for a move to Enigma, he and his son continued to argue, and according to Brenda, Lee told David “not to set foot on his property.”

“Mr. Lee told me David had been warned to to come back on his property,” she said, adding that Lee has had a history of heavy drinking, and that could have factored into the day’s events. She also said Lee told her he had guns in his house. She added that Lee told her he “wished bad things would happen to (David).”

Brenda said she saw Lee on his porch just before the gunshots rang out.

“Then before I knew it, there were cops swarming all around here,” she said. Brenda spoke with David’s fiancee after the shooting, who told her the father and son had quarreled that morning.

“We didn’t think (Lee) would do something like this,” she said, adding that the fiancee said David had been shot in the shoulder by his dad.

“To us, he was the nicest man. He would do anything for you,” Brenda said. She added that she had talked to David a couple of days before the shooting, and David had told her “My daddy’s crazy.”

“We’ve been here since December, and this is the first trouble we’ve had,” said Martha.

Lt. Col. Larry Taylor, with the Tift County Sheriff’s Office, said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has been called in to investigate the incident. He would not comment extensively on the shooting, but did say there were two gun shots fired by the same person.

At press time, a representative at Tift Regional Medical Center said that David Harris had been treated and released. Calls to the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon have not been returned.

To contact editor Angye Morrison, call 382-4321.

Text Only

Homepage

Search Results

Related Photos

Father and son squabble turns ugly

Site Map

Contact Us