Jackson Jambalaya

Some REALLY bad dudes went on a crime spree yesterday that began at Fortification Street and ended at Chastain Middle School although one scumbag is still at large.  WLBT reported:

With guns at the ready, Jackson police officers searched for armed robbers Thursday afternoon, a dangerous situation which prompted school officials to lock down Chastain Middle School.

After searching, police found one man hiding on the property and arrested 22-year-old Raymond Echols.

Some residents at a nearby apartment complex caught a glimpse as well.

“I looked, and there was two guys running,” said resident Stephanie Cisneros. “They were shooting each other, they jumped through the fence and ran, and I just shut the door and ran back inside home.”

Jackson police had been searching for the suspects already involved in three shootings that day.

Surveillance stills show one of the men still believed to be at large, entering the Cash 4 Gold convenience store on Fortification and West before the suspects robbed and shot a man who had just used the store's ATM.

Police say the armed suspects then went to the Cash and Carry Wholesale Store on Interstate 55, waiting for store employees to come out with deposit money.

They got out of their vehicle and demanded money, firing a shot at the employee's SUV, which quickly sped away.

“We feel like it's a group of individuals that we've been looking at, for not necessarily committing armed robberies but some burglaries," said Jackson Police Chief Lee Vance. "So this may be them graduating up to robbing people.”

Our cameras also captured 23-year-old Ryan Waters being taken into custody after police spotted her inside a vehicle.

The third shooting isn't confirmed by Jackson police, but one law enforcement source said it involved a JPD officer.

The source says a cop tried to stop the suspects' swerving vehicle on Manhattan Street, but they fired at the officer instead. It's at that point the suspects ran toward the school.

At this point, two of the suspects have been arrested in the Capital City crime spree.

Officer Colendula Green said Waters and Echols are charged with two counts of aggravated assault, one count of shooting into an occupied vehicle and one count of attempted armed robbery of an individual.

Apparently Mr. Echols is no stranger to the criminal justice system.  MDOC told JJ that "Raymond Echols was released on probation 5/23/13. He has two convictions – armed robbery and burglary - for which he received a six-year sentence running concurrently."

The Mississippi Supreme Court gave the facts of that case in Christmas v. State (2009) as young Echols testified against his buddies:

Raymond Echols, one of Christmas’s co-defendants, testified that on the morning of July 25, 2006, he, Joseph Harris, Travis Thurman, and Christmas were driving a stolen black Avalanche in and around Edwards, Mississippi.1 Echols stated that Christmas was driving but was not present when the vehicle was stolen. Echols testified these young men observed “an old white woman at her mailbox,” and Christmas initiated a plan to break into this woman’s house. According to Echols, Christmas exited the vehicle, approached the house, and knocked on the door.

¶4. Margie Sellers testified that she answered the door to a clean-cut, young, African-American man who asked whether he could go fishing in the pond near her home. She told him it was not her pond and he would have to ask the owner’s permission. She stated that the man at her door came from a black truck, with the windows tinted, and she could see “the forms of two others in the truck.”

¶5. The men then left, drove a short distance up the road, and returned to Ms. Sellers’s house. Echols testified the men had no intention of going fishing, but planned to rob Sellers. When they returned to her house, Echols testified that only Christmas and Harris went to the door. However, Ms. Sellers testified that when she opened her door a second time, there were three men. Ms. Sellers stated she saw each of their faces, “but as far as taking a good look . . . I did not.” According to Sellers, one of the men told her that the owners of the home with the pond were not at home, so she stepped outside her door onto the porch to point the men to another home. Ms. Sellers testified that when she turned to go back inside her home, one of the men

grabbed me from behind, put a gun to my head and shoved me on in the house, and he was pushing me. And he said, “where’s the money? where’s the money? I’ll kill you.” And the other came running through and went down to one end of the trailer while he was pushing me toward the other end. I told him – I said, “what money I have is in my purse on the couch. And just take it and leave.”

 Ms. Sellers testified she was then shoved by the man onto the floor in a closet. She stated that he told her to stay there and then ran out of the room. Once the men left, Ms. Sellers called 911.

¶7. According to Echols, Christmas was the person who grabbed Ms. Sellers and put the gun to her head. Echols said that Christmas pushed the victim into the house, and Harris followed. Echols testified that when Christmas and Harris came out of the house, Harris was carrying a white purse.

¶8. Meanwhile, the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department was tracking the stolen black Avalanche through the vehicle’s global positioning system. Deputy Sheriff Andrew McKinley testified that while he was on patrol, he received a call about the location of the stolen car. McKinley testified that around the same the time he first observed the Avalanche, he learned that there had been a house burglary in Edwards and that another unit was responding to that burglary.....

 Ms. Sellers was 80 years old. Mr. Echols cut a deal and testified against his cadres in crime.  He received a sentence of twenty years in prison with fourteen years suspended.