Bainbridge Public Safety arrested Ladarris Small, 24, in connection with a shooting that occurred at Rivers Apartments Tuesday evening. A second suspect, Larry Mathis Jr., is still wanted by BPS. A female victim suffered injuries to her arm and a male victim suffered injuries to his leg during the shooting. 

“At approximately nine o’clock we got a call about a shooting at Rivers Apartments,” Investigator Chris Jordan said. “The call came out, originally we had one person shot. By the time officers got there we had been advised that there was two people that had been shot.”

The shooting occurred following a large fight outside of Rivers Apartments. According to Jordan, a male that lived at Rivers Apartments angered another male by communicating with the second male’s girlfriend on Facebook. This led them to schedule the fight.

“From what we determined so far, there was six to eight people fighting,” Jordan said. “Some of them came out of (an Expedition carrying eight people) and some of them lived at Rivers Apartments. The guy that was facebooking the girl actually lives at Rivers. The girl, the boyfriend, the boyfriend’s cousin and five of their friends were all in that Expedition.”

According to Jordan, Small and Mathis Jr. arrived at the scene in a black car. They were not originally involved in the fight, but it is believed that during the course of the fight something was said to Mathis Jr. that upset him. It is believed that Small originally exited the car and then Mathis exited with a 16-gauge shotgun loaded with 20-gauge shells and fired into the crowd twice before the gun jammed.

“The 20-gauge shell had jammed into that 16-gauge barrel and it wouldn’t let it eject,” Jordan said. “He would have done more shooting. He had another round in the gun. There’s no doubt in my mind he’d have shot again. “

By the time officers arrived on scene, Small, Mathis Jr. and all eight occupants of the Expedition had fled the scene.

“We got some information from witness saying that the black car belongs to [Small’s] girlfriend and he was driving,” Jordan said. “We went to the girlfriend’s house. The car was there.”

The officers recovered the shotgun in the trunk of the car and made contact with Small at the residence. He is charged with aggravated assault, possession of firearms by convicted felon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

According to Jordan, the investigation is ongoing and he expects more arrests to be made, including Mathis Jr. and multiple people involved in the original fight.

“Before this is all said and done I’ll probably have eight to ten people in custody,” Jordan said.