An Atlanta man was arrested on multiple charges after he became so incensed that his rideshare driver could not give him cigarettes that he drew two guns and hijacked the car, police said.
After the driver was able to pull over and escape, officers chased down 34-year-old Keith Long and discovered that he was carrying a variety of illegal drugs in his backpack, Atlanta police said in a news release. Long also had an active warrant for his arrest on charges of attempted murder, among others, stemming from an August shooting in southwest Atlanta.
The alleged cigarette incident took place Nov. 27. Long pulled two handguns on the driver and told him to keep driving or he would shoot, police said. The driver eventually escaped in the 200 block of Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard and called 911.
After officers arrived, one was able to find the driver’s car, then noticed a man who matched the driver’s description of the suspect. When the officers approached the man, he ran away. They were able to catch him and take him into custody, police said.
Long was carrying a backpack, which the officers searched, leading them to recover a handgun and a variety of drugs, including marijuana, MDMA, methamphetamine and cocaine, according to police.
Long was initially booked into the Fulton County Jail on charges of aggravated assault, armed robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle, battery with substantial physical harm, abandonment of dangerous drugs, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, according to jail records.
Once in jail, Long was charged by authorities with multiple other counts related to a shooting that took place Aug. 3 at a southwest Atlanta gas station.
According to warrants obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, officers responded to a Chevron gas station at 221 Cleveland Ave. and found a woman with a gunshot wound to her leg.
In a statement given to investigators two days after the shooting, the woman said she was dropping off her child’s father before she was shot, the warrant said. While they were talking in her car, another man pulled up and asked, “What’s blazing?” The woman recognized the man, who was later identified as Long, but only knew him by the nickname “Meen.”
The woman and her child’s father began to argue in the gas station parking lot about a different topic, the warrant said, but when she looked at Long again, he asked for the second time, “What’s blazing?” She turned around and heard two gunshots, one of which hit her in the leg.
Long fled the scene and was not found until the woman picked him out of a lineup following his November arrest, the warrant said. After being identified, Long was charged with criminal attempt to commit murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Long remains in the Fulton County Jail without bond.
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