Police in Fort Mill, South Carolina — a suburb of Charlotte, NC, where the Republican National Convention was being held — arrested a black man, 23-year-old Marquise Damarius Asomani, on Tuesday for shooting at a group of President Donald Trump‘s supporters, WSOC-TV reported.
Fort Mill police say someone drove up I-77 last night and fired a gun at supporters of President Trump. They were waving flags from the Sutton Road overpass. Police say a Charlotte man is in custody this morning, pending charges. No one was hurt. More info soon.
— Greg Suskin (@GSuskinWSOC9) August 25, 2020
Witnesses said a car with three men drove past the supporters a few times while cussing at them.
Then the vehicle turned onto I-77, headed north in the direction of Charlotte, and the driver leaned out the window, yelled, and fired bullets at the crowd.
No one was shot or injured.
“We had all the windows down because we had all the flags out the windows, and it was very loud and it was four or five shots,” said Angie Freeman, who was at the parade.
A South Carolina state trooper was on the bridge when the shots were fired.
Police officers pursued the vehicle, and then found it at Gold Hill Road and Deerfield Drive with no one in it.
They saw Asomani, who fit the description that witnesses gave to officers, with two other men in a different car.
Officers stopped the car, questioned the men, and arrested Asomani.
“Officers spoke with several people that stated they were present at a political gathering, in that area of Sutton Road, when three male subjects drove by more than once, making derogatory remarks and yelling obscenities at them, from their vehicle,” said Fort Mill Police Dept. Major Bryan Zachary to the Charlotte Observer.
“The victims also stated that, as the vehicle turned from Sutton Road onto the ramp to northbound I-77, the driver of the vehicle continued yelling and then extended his arm through the window, while holding what appeared to be a handgun. The victims further stated that, at that moment, they heard several shots fired, and the vehicle then proceeded northbound on the Interstate.”
The other two men were set free and were not charged.
Police charged Asomani with “six counts of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, one count of unlawful carrying of a pistol, one count of pointing and presenting firearms at a person and possession of a firearm during a violent crime,” WSOC-TV reported.
