Five left wounded after gunfire interrupts Green Level block party
Alamance County’s sheriff has announced the first two arrests in a mass shooting that ripped through the small town of Green Level nearly two weeks ago.
Sheriff Terry Johnson shared word of these arrests during a news conference on Wednesday as he briefed the assembled reporters on the shooting, which left five people wounded after gunfire broke out during a block party in the small hours of the morning on Saturday, September 20.
Johnson insisted that he was particularly horrified when he first heard about this shooting, which took place in a community that relies on the sheriff’s office for its police protection.
“Over the past several months, there’ve been mass shootings all over the United States,” he added during the news conference. “And I’ve watched each morning the news and said ‘man, I hope this never happens in my county.”
Johnson went on to identify the primary suspect in this case as Cedrick Lamont Watson, Jr., a 20-year-old black male who hails from Orange County.
According to the sheriff’s office, Watson’s alleged actions on September 20 have resulted in three counts of assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill as well as an additional charge for the illegal possession of a firearm by a previously convicted felon. Watson has been charged with several earlier crimes, including 10 counts of discharging a weapon into occupied property on August 21, two counts for possession of weapons of mass destruction on August 4, and two additional counts of firearm possession despite his status as a convicted felon.
During Wednesday’s news conference, Johnson noted that Watson’s felony record had come into play during his capture in Orange County earlier this week. The sheriff recalled that the shooting suspect had initially agreed to turn himself in during a meeting with his parole officer on Monday. Watson reportedly bolted during this meeting – only to be run down and remanded to Alamance County’s jail where he remains in custody under a $2 million bond.
Aside from his alleged crimes in Green Level, Watson is also implicated in a pair of shootings in Burlington, according to Johnson, who characterized the Orange County resident as a clear and present threat to the community. “
“Cedric Watson is a violent offender who needs to be taken off the street,” he added. “At this time, he is in our jail, and hopefully, he will not get out.”
In addition to Watson, the sheriff’s office has arrested Javiya A. Parker, a 19-year-old black female who has been charged as an accessory after the fact for allegedly driving Watson away from the scene of the shooting. Parker is currently in Alamance County’s jail.
Johnson added that other charges are anticipated in this investigation – both against other individuals and the suspects already in custody.
The sheriff acknowledged, however, that it took his agency a fair amount of effort to bring this case to the point where he could announce the capture of even one suspect. Among the factors that complicated the investigation was the utter confusion which reigned along the 1400 block of Florence Street in Green Level during the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
“There were people running everywhere,” Johnson recalled. “Our officers could not get where the crime actually occurred. It was total chaos.”
The sheriff said that his deputies began their investigation by cordoning off the scene, which they scoured for shell casings and other physical evidence. From what they could gather, it seemed that at least three firearms were discharged, although Johnson wouldn’t specify if anyone other than Watson is believed to have pulled the triggers.
In the moments immediately after the shooting, deputies were able to identify three victims from the shooting in Green Level, while two more later surfaced at a Flying J truck stop in Graham. Johnson went on to identify three of the victims as 34-year-old Jermaine Lamont Dickerson, 19-year-old Hezekiah Tervante Pinnix, and 22-year-old Jikwon Devonte Bradsher. In addition to these three black males, a 15-year-old black male and a 16-year-old black female were also shot, although Johnson declined to disclose the name of either teen because of their age.
Johnson recalled that while some of his deputies combed the scene for physical evidence, others tried to glean information from some of the 200-plus people who were on hand for the block party. The sheriff added that a general climate of fear made it almost impossible to elicit anything useful from these witnesses.
“Of the 200 people there nobody saw nothing,” he conceded. “Those people were scared to death, and It’s very tough to solve a crime when no one wants to talk.”
Johnson said that his agency’s investigators eventually got some breaks in the case thanks to anonymous tips left on the county’s Crime Stoppers hotline. He also credited other area law enforcement agencies with helping his own men and women make the most of these tips.
Johnson ultimately yielded the floor to Orange County’s sheriff Charles Blackwood to describe the role that a multi-agency strike team had in the course of this case. The members of this team, which currently includes the sheriff’s offices in Alamance, Orange, Guilford, and Durham counties, had been instrumental in Watson’s arrest, and Blackwood insisted that their overall success stems from the systematic way they approach violent crime.
“I want to stress to everyone, this is not dragnet traffic enforcement, but rather data driven response to criminal activity within our communities,” Blackwood explained during the news conference. “The good people in these communities deserve to live in their homes free of fear of the criminal activity going on around them.”
The assembled reporters also heard from Jason Walsh, the resident agent in charge at the local office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, about the federal government’s interest in this particular case.
“Our job at ATF focuses on the most violent of the violent,” he said, “and we anticipate multiple federal charges being brought against multiple individuals in this shooting…This is a regional approach. If you do a shooting in Alamance County, you can’t run to Durham County; You can’t run to Danville, Virginia.”
Walsh’s words were later echoed by Johnson, who insisted that his own deputies are committing to doing what needs to be done to protect Green Level and other communities in Alamance County.
“No citizen should be afraid to come out of their house in the evening,” he asserted. “I promise the citizens that we are going to be out there whether you like it or not…and we’re coming after you if you’re going to violate the law.
“I want the people of Green Level to know that we care about you,” the sheriff continued. “It’s our job to protect you, and we’re going to.”
