Nearly two weeks after a former college football player and high school coach was shot and killed during a botched carjacking at a Gwinnett County QuikTrip, one of the suspects has been arrested and charged with murder, police said.
David Jarrad Booker, 20, of Stone Mountain, was arrested Wednesday on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault in connection with the July 10 incident, Gwinnett police said in a news release. He was booked into the Gwinnett jail and remains there without bond.
Investigators believe Booker is one of three men who were involved in the incident that left Louisiana resident Bradley Coleman dead.
Family Photo
Family Photo
Coleman, a Norcross High School graduate who went on to play college football at Southern University and then coach at Peachtree Ridge High School, was in town to visit his daughter, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. The 29-year-old was putting air in his tires at a QT location in Peachtree Corners when the three men pulled up next to him in a black car.
One of the suspects then climbed into the driver’s seat of Coleman’s car, police said. Coleman got into his car from the passenger side and tried to stop the suspects from stealing it. A second suspect got out of the black car and got involved with the fight.
While the suspects were struggling with Coleman, a bystander unaware of what was happening pulled up behind Coleman’s car to wait for the air pump. The suspect in the driver’s seat tried to drive Coleman’s car away, but hit the bystander’s car. The suspects abandoned Coleman’s car and shot him before driving away in their car.
Coleman died at the scene.
Booker was arrested just a few days after a candlelight vigil was held at Lillian Webb Park. It was just one display of the outpouring of grief and support for Coleman’s family. In the immediate aftermath of his killing, friends and members of Coleman’s community shared their pain and condolences for his family.
“I want the law enforcement community to bring these animals to justice,” Coleman’s former youth football coach John Lewis told Channel 2 Action News. “They took away a great young man.”
“On behalf of the Jaguar Nation, I offer sincere condolences to the family, teammates and other loved ones of Bradley Coleman, former Jaguar wide receiver,” Southern University President Dr. Dennis Shields said on social media.
A GoFundMe page created to cover Coleman’s final expenses and set up a trust fund for his daughter has raised more than $105,000 in about 10 days.
“Bradley had a little girl, and because of these criminals, she’s lost her daddy,” the fundraiser’s creator Brooke Watson wrote.
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