Three people, including two teens already jailed in connection with two violent armed robberies, have been linked to a brutal attack of an acquaintance they knew from South Gwinnett High School, police said Monday.
Jashon Aaron Samuels, Irving Lewis Saunders and Je’von (Jevon) Harris allegedly beat the acquaintance so bad, his face looked “somewhat deformed and extremely swollen, his left eye [was] almost swollen shut and dried blood [was] covering his face and shirt,” Gwinnett police Cpl. Michele Pihera said.
The incident started when four teens “he knew … through South Gwinnett High School” approached him at his job on March 28 and offered him a ride to a friend’s house after his shift ended, Pihera said. He is no longer a student at the school, she said.
The group stopped by the acquaintance’s home, a gas station and a Wal-Mart, he told police. The acquaintance went inside the Wal-Mart alone. When he exited the store, the four teens and the car were gone. He walked to his friend’s house, saw the four teens standing near the car and approached them.
“Three of them began physically assaulting him in the face,” Pihera said. “He was eventually knocked to the ground by the beating. The suspects emptied his pockets.”
After stealing his phone and wallet, the teens sped away in the car and the acquaintance walked back home. A family member took him to Eastside Medical Center, where police interviewed him.
“Once the case was assigned to a detective,” Pihera said, “he was able to determine that three of the suspects were Jashon Samuels, Irving Saunders, and Je’von (Jevon) Harris.”
Samuels, 18, Saunders, 17, and Harris, 19, face charges of aggravated assault and robbery, police said.
While police have not arrested Harris, Samuels, Saunders and two other teenagers were arrested after two armed robberies in the 3300 block of Stone Mountain Highway on May 6. In both cases, the victims were brutally assaulted, too.
Of the four teens arrested after those May 6 robberies, three have been linked to other crimes.
Thoushal Nakill Lucas, 19, was charged with battery and theft by deception charges in connection with an earlier burglary on Asperity Lane.
Samuels, 18, was also charged with armed robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle and battery in connection with an incident on Cherie Glen Trail on May 1 after a Gwinnett detective assigned to the first case noted similarities in the alleged crimes, Pihera said.
“We feel confident that as long as these four … stay incarcerated, the residents in Snellville can breathe a little easier,” Pihera said last week.
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