One of three men arrested after a shooting at Perimeter Mall in January was convicted Thursday of aggravated assault by a DeKalb County jury and sentenced to six years in prison.
Raymon Pierre, 22, of Decatur, has been held in the DeKalb jail since he was arrested a few hours after the Jan. 6 shooting, online records show. His prison sentence will be followed by 14 years on probation and he will be banned from all shopping malls in the county, according to DeKalb District Attorney Sherry Boston.
The shooting took place after an argument between the three defendants around 4:45 p.m. inside the Dunwoody mall, Boston said. Pierre and Roykell Holder, 21, got into a verbal dispute with 20-year-old Che’Saun Lacey that escalated into an exchange of gunfire.
Boston said video evidence showed that Pierre started the confrontation with Lacey, who initially walked away from Pierre’s group. Lacey then turned around and flashed a gun, leading Holder to pull his gun, according to Boston. The two allegedly shot at each other and both were hit.
When police arrived, they found Lacey on the ground suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest, Boston said. Lacey was initially labeled as a victim and taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. As the investigation progressed, he was eventually charged with aggravated assault and arrested at his home in Stockbridge on March 1.
Lacey was granted bond March 10 but failed to appear for his trial Monday, online court records show. A bench warrant was issued for his arrest and an administrative hold has been placed on his court proceedings.
On the day of the shooting, police tracked Pierre and Holder to the Pleasantdale Crossing Apartments, where both were arrested. Holder suffered a gunshot wound to the hand and was taken to the hospital before being booked into jail.
Holder’s case is also now on hold after he was charged alongside four others in a suspected attack on a fellow inmate in the DeKalb jail, according to court documents. He is accused of assaulting the man with a sharp object and then sexually assaulting him. That case has been indicted, but no trial has been set.
After his guilty verdict, Pierre remains in the DeKalb jail awaiting transfer to state prison.
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