A man taken into custody in connection with a killing overnight is the same man who fired an assault rifle at officers at the end of a short chase, Atlanta police said Friday.
Police got a call about 2 a.m. Friday from the occupant of a home on Lakewood Avenue saying that someone had barricaded the door to the home and he couldn’t get in, Atlanta police Lt. Charles Hampton said.
When officers arrived and entered the house, they found a man in his late 60s dead with blunt force trauma to his head, according to Hampton.
Family members of the victim identified him as 68-year-old Melvin Cummings, according to Channel 2 Action News.
Another man who was inside the house was taken into custody and interviewed, Hampton said.
Police said they have determined that the man, identified as 23-year-old Alphonso Cochran, was the same man who bailed out of a stolen minivan and fired two shots at pursuing officers from an AK-47 before jumping a fence and fleeing late Thursday.
Police later found the AK-47 behind the same Lakewood Avenue house where Cummings was found dead.
“He (Cummings) was just a great man and for something like this to happen, senseless, just doesn’t make any sense,” the victim’s nephew Ernest Cummings told Channel 2.
Cochran is being held in the Fulton County jail. Charges against him include murder and aggravated assault against peace officer, according to jail records.
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