A man faces murder charges after a fight over a cell phone led to the fatal shooting of a Jackson man in Newton County, police said.
Officers found 24-year-old Telmo Ortiz of Jackson on Saturday, lying in a yard at 4180 Washington Street dead of several apparent gunshot wounds, according to a Covington police report.
Darnell Rene Floyd of Conyers refused to stop his Ford Expedition shortly thereafter, when Covington police Officer Mark Joyner watched him pull out of an area near Washington Street. Joyner had just heard at least three gunshots and the Ford Expedition a man later identified as Floyd was driving had no headlights.
Joyner tried to stop make a traffic stop, but Floyd took off, the report states.
Officer Mark Moseley and Joyner continued to chase the Expedition west along I-20 into Rockdale County, where sheriff’s deputies joined the chase.
Floyd exited at West Avenue, drove through Conyers and returned to I-20, headed east, the report states.
That’s where Rockdale deputies used a controlled crash to end the chase in Covington and arrested Floyd, who had a woman and an infant in the car with him, police wrote in the report. They weren’t harmed.
Floyd also had a stolen handgun in his possession.
Officers at the scene of Ortiz’s death alleged Floyd was the shooter and that the men had been fighting over a cell phone before the fight turned physical and shots were fired, according to the police report.
Floyd was charged with murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and felony fleeing and attempting to elude police.
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