According to Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell, three Sparta men have been arrested in connection with a brawl at an Eatonton gas station.
Around 3:15 a.m. April 28, Eatonton Police Officer Jeremy McClure responded to a call of a fight at the Jet No. 44 Food Mart at the intersection of Gray Highway and U.S. 441 Eatonton Bypass.
As he was pulling into the parking lot, a number of people and vehicles were leaving the area, and a Jet staff member was locking the doors to ensure no one entered the store, McClure wrote in his report. Eatonton Police Department’s Sgt.
Elijah James and Putnam County Sheriff’s Office deputies also responded, “to ensure the safety of everyone there,” McClure wrote. The law enforcement officers ordered everyone not fueling their vehicles to leave the premises and cleared the scene.
Security camera footage of the melee revealed the business parking lot was crowded with vehicles and dozens of people were milling around. Cardwell said that a red, double-cab pickup truck pulled up, and a few people in the crowd were seen in the video pointing and shouting at someone in the pickup.
Cedric Hill got out of the back, passenger side door. As soon as he got out, two men, later identified as Labarrius Deonte Grable and Timothy Hunt, began hitting Hill until he fell to the ground.
Hunt continued to punch Hill after he was down on the pavement and couldn’t get up, Cardwell said.
Another man, later identified as Antwan Barnes, ran around from the other side of the red pickup and hit a man who was standing nearby. That man, identified as Keon Lewis, lost his balance, fell to the ground, and could not stand without assistance, Cardwell wrote in his report.
“Barnes was involved in several fights during this incident,” Cardwell said. “He was fighting here, fighting over there, fighting everywhere. For about 30 minutes, that’s all he did.”
It is unknown what the fight was about, “but they had been going back and forth all night,” Cardwell said.
Handguns were brandished during the fight, but no shots were fired, and no one went to the hospital for treatment of injuries.
Cardwell did not recognize any of the men involved in the fight, but when he noticed Hancock County license plates on the vehicles, he consulted with Hancock County Sheriff Terrell Primus.
Cardwell said that Primus identified the men, picked them up in Sparta, and brought them to Putnam County for arrest.
Labarrius Deonte Grable, 29, and Timothy Hunt, 31, both of Sparta, were arrested on May 29 and charged with simple battery. Antwan Fermond Barnes, 27, also of Sparta, was charged with battery. Each of them was released on a $730 property bond.
The incident remains under investigation, and Cardwell requests anyone with information about it to call him at 706- 485-3551.