A notion to haphazardly fire off a few rounds has landed a Sunflower couple in jail.
On April 23 and April 24, respectively, officers arrested Joseph Johnson 54, and Kimberly Jones 33, both whose address is listed as 411 Craig St., Sunflower and charged them with a drive-by shooting after an April 15 incident.
Based on the reported information, a call came in to the Sunflower County Sheriff’s Office close to 11:30 p.m., that night regarding a shooting on Martin Luther King Jr Avenue and the sheriff’s office called Sunflower Police Officer Jerry Pate, who informed them that he heard the shots and was on that street, but believed the shots were coming from a different location.
Officer Pate said he was parked at Eddie’s Grocery when Jones, who was driving a tan suburban with Johnson in the passenger’s seat, approached him approximately 10 minutes before he got the call and said they needed to talk to him when he finished at that site.
The report states that as Pate was leaving Eddie’s Grocery at approximately 11:40 p.m., a man stopped him and told him that Jones and Johnson had fired shots from a tan Suburban near the Sunflower River Apartments and had gone out near the Dollar General store on U.S. 49 and allegedly fired more shots.
Officer Pate reportedly found .45-caliber shell casings near the store.
Other witnesses also reportedly saw the SUV in the vicinity of the apartments, but laid no claim to being able to identify the occupants.
On the following day, Jones also reportedly texted one of the witnesses, and told them that they had messed up and threatened to show up at their job site.
She also provided an officer with a written statement of her account of the incident, in which she allegedly wrote that she and three others were out riding on the highway with Johnson when he said, “I am going to shoot my gun off and I hope don’t nobody think (I’m) shooting at them.”
The report said that when Johnson shot the gun, somebody shot back, and that’s when Jones reportedly said, “I’m fixing to go home.”
She indicated that is what she did.
“And I stayed at home,” the report indicated she said.
According to arrest documents, their bond was set at $50,000 each.
