A Putnam County man who reportedly pulled out a handgun and threatened golfers on a Greene County golf course last week is now in jail.
Luke Hill Leverett, 26, of Oconee Springs Road, Eatonton, is in Greene County jail facing charges of pointing or aiming a gun at another, terroristic threats and acts, and criminal trespass, according to reports from Greene County Sheriff’s Office and Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.
Around 5 p.m. Tuesday, June 13, Greene County Sheriff’s deputies responded to The Landing regarding several phone calls that had come into the 911 center. The first call was about a domestic dispute, with the caller advising that a man was standing outside a residence's back door on Big Water Circle arguing with a female who was inside, according to a GCSO incident report.
The caller was playing golf when he reportedly heard the man yelling vulgar language, attempting to get the woman to open the door and let him in, and threatening to shoot through the window.
The golfer told Lt. Reeves that he had asked the man to calm down because there were children out on the golf course. The golfer said the man, later identified as Leverett, got into his pickup truck and yelled at him and his golfing partners, “(Expletive) all you all, what (expletive) are you looking at!”
“(The golfer) stated that the male was visibly upset and appeared to be in some sort of rage, and he left driving a black ’90s-model pickup truck,” Reeves wrote in his report.
Meanwhile, another call came to 911 with a different caller saying a man had pulled a gun on three other golfers in the same area.
Another deputy responded to that call and met with the three golfers. The three men said they were leaving hole No. 15 and crossing the road to get to the No. 16 tee box when Leverett drove by in a dark pickup and “screamed at them, ‘You won’t be smiling with a bullet in your face,’” according to the incident report.
Leverett stopped his truck and got out, reportedly grabbed a handgun, racked it, and started walking toward the golfers. The three jumped out of the golf cart and ran towards the marina to safety. Leverett, who had an authorized transporter to get him through The Landing’s gates, got back in his truck and left the area.
Greene County Sheriff’s Department obtained warrants for Leverett’s arrest, and a BOLO was issued for him and his truck. Reeves also reportedly discovered that Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office had an active probation warrant out for Leverett.
Reeves talked to the woman with whom Leverett was arguing and threatening at her golf course residence. She was his girlfriend and she "nonchalantly" told Reeves that she was fine, according to the report. The girlfriend also shushed her mother, who started to offer her version of the story and refused any advice from Reeves about protective orders.
As soon as Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills got the BOLO on Leverett, he recognized the name and sent deputies to Leverett’s mother’s house on Oconee Springs Road in Putnam County.
“But no one was home at the time,” Sills said. “So the next day, I spoke to his family members and told them to tell Luke to surrender.”
Thursday afternoon, Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell called Sills and said he’d heard from Leverett, who told him he wanted to surrender on certain conditions.
Leverett said he’d only surrender to Cardwell and Sills, with no other law enforcement officers around, and he would only do so at his mother’s house.
Sills said he and Cardwell went to Leverett’s mother’s house at the arranged time, “and 30 to 45 minutes later, he still hadn’t shown up.”
The sheriff and police chief searched around the premises and found Leverett’s 1994 Chevrolet pickup hidden down by the creek behind the house.
Upon discovering Leverett was not in his pickup truck, Sills said he called Greene County Sheriff Donnie Harrison and got the information on Leverett’s girlfriend and her vehicle.
Sills and Cardwell also had been calling Leverett on the phone. Leverett finally answered and told them he was visiting with his child in Jasper County and wanted to stay there another day with his child before he turned himself in, according to Sills. Meanwhile, the sheriff said he “used technology” to figure out that Leverett was actually in Milledgeville.
“Now, I’m willing to work with somebody to surrender, but when they tell me a lie, then that changes everything,” Sills said.
Learning through the FLOCK camera system that the girlfriend’s car was on U.S. Hwy. 441 headed toward Pea Ridge Road, the sheriff notified his deputies to head that way, and he and Cardwell did the same. When they saw the girlfriend’s car on Pea Ridge Road, Sills activated the blue lights on his unmarked vehicle.
“She stopped at the intersection of Oconee Springs and Pea Ridge; but when we got out of our vehicle, she took off again,” he said.
The same thing happened two more times until they were in a location where the sheriff could box the car in.
“We extracted Leverett from her car and took him to Putnam County jail and notified Greene County and they came and got him,” Sills said.