A teenager identified this week as one of two suspects in a 2019 carjacking outside a MARTA station has been sitting in the Fulton County Jail for nearly a year.
D’Shawn Garrison, 18, was arrested last May in connection with the rape of a woman who was jogging in a northwest Atlanta neighborhood. Two days before the violent incident, Garrison had bonded out of jail on an unrelated theft charge.
He hasn’t left the jail again since his second arrest on May 9, 2019. On Wednesday, MARTA police announced that Garrison was one of two suspects in an April 2019 carjacking outside the Hamilton E. Holmes station.
The other suspect, 17-year-old Javonte Avery, was arrested Tuesday with the help of U.S. marshals.
A little after 4:30 p.m. on April 27, a woman who was on her way to an Atlanta United soccer game was carjacked at gunpoint by two young men, according to a MARTA police incident report. The woman was not injured, but her purse and Audi A4 were stolen while she was in the south lot of the station.
Avery and Garrison are both facing charges of aggravated assault, armed robbery and hijacking in connection with the incident. Garrison is also facing an additional charge of possession of a weapon during the commission of a felony, jail records show.
He will now have to answer for a total of 13 criminal counts in four separate incidents that occurred over two weeks in 2019.
RELATED: Police: Atlanta teen raped woman days after bonding out on theft charge
Several are related to the theft of a car from Forest Park, which resulted in Garrison’s first arrest. He was captured by Atlanta police on May 6, 2019, after he was spotted driving the vehicle and led officers on a short chase.
Garrison briefly escaped custody before turning himself in to authorities. He posted a $17,500 signature bond May 7 and was released to his mother.
He is accused in two more incidents in the days following his release: the robbery and battery of a woman May 8 and the alleged rape of a jogger May 9.
According to police, the jogger was attacked on a front lawn on Abner Place. A witness helped to stop the assault and held Garrison until officers arrived, police said.
His initial release drew the ire of the officers tired of putting the same teenager behind bars. At the time, Garrison had already compiled a lengthy criminal history and was wearing an ankle monitor related to a prior offense.
“It is sickening for officers to see that,” Atlanta police spokesman Sgt. John Chafee told Channel 2 Action News after Garrison’s May 9 arrest. “It’s extremely frustrating.”
In a statement, District Attorney Paul Howard said prosecutors were unaware of Garrison’s juvenile record when he was granted bond. It was a mistake, Howard said at the time.
All four of Garrison’s cases are pending in Fulton County Superior Court. In the rape case, prosecutors have offered him a plea deal: a recommended sentence of life with the possibility of parole after 20 years behind bars.
Garrison last petitioned the court for bond in December, pleading for his release in a handwritten letter.
“I can be at home fighting my case from the street and I could get back in school and get me a job somewhere,” he wrote in the letter addressed to his attorney. “It ain't no sense of me just sitting in here and I can be in school right now finishing up.”
The petition was denied.
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