Local

Attorney says 18-year-old shot up his house

HENRY COUNTY, Ga. — A Henry County attorney is ready to move his family out of their neighborhood after police said someone shot up the front of his home.

The owner told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot a young woman came down and knocked on the door.  She was having a relationship with a houseguest of his.  Then someone in a car started shooting blindly in the house.

Gil Maxwell showed Channel 2 Action News all the damage the hail of gunfire did to the front of his now bullet-riddled house.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven bullets all around the front door -- shows to my mind that he had the intent to kill,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell said an 18-year-old named August Groover came by the house looking for his houseguest.

He said they have a stormy relationship, but he said she also brought a carload of young men with her, and when she couldn't get into the house, Maxwell said someone opened fire, right as he was standing at the front door.

One bullet shattered the chandelier, raining glass on him; that's when he ducked for cover.

“(I heard) a bullet whistle past my ear as I (started) to run to the right, past my kitchen,” Maxwell said.

The bullets tore through his wall, his file cabinet, even ricocheted off his Mercedes. Maxwell said he has no idea how one of the bullets didn't tear through him as well.

“Four bullets…had I been standing where I had been just a second earlier, I would have been hit in the pelvis, in the face, the kidney and the ankle,” Maxwell said.

Police later arrested Groover and 18-year-old Malcolm Dabney. Dabney is charged with assault.

Maxwell is glad for the arrest, but says the violence traumatized his entire family, who was home at the time.

He's so worried others are still out there that he's bought a gun, and is seriously thinking about moving.

“(I feel) anger, rage and (helplessness) because I was on the receiving end of brutal violence,” Maxwell said.

While police have made some arrests, they're also checking to see if anyone else is involved in the shooting.