A Commerce, Georgia man, Robert L. Clark Jr., 55, shot and **** his 6-year-old grandson because he either dropped or cut a watermelon prematurely.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Commerce Police Chief John Gaissert said that in addition to **** his grandson to death, he wounded his wife and brandished his weapon before police shot him down.
“At this point in the investigation we believe the argument precipitated over a watermelon,” Gaissert said from the scene Monday. “The child either dropped the watermelon or cut it prematurely. The ensuing argument escalated and resulted in deadly ****.”
The little boy's body was identified as Michael Levigne. At the time of the **** the the ****'s 5-year old brother was also inside the house but escaped unharmed and is currently in custody of Family and Children's Services.
Clark was shot by police officials after a 45-minute standoff when he opened his front door flashing his handgun and eventually fired shots. Two officers from Commerce, two from Jackson County and one from Pendergrass and a Georgia State Patrol officers fired shots at the old man, wounding him. He was later air-lifted to Grady Memorial Hospital along with his wife.
“How many shots I can’t tell you,” said Gaissert, who noted the officers are currently on administrative leave.
Apparently in the past, there have been several 911 calls from the home and DFACS has a lengthy history with the family, Gaissert said. He also stated that Clark and the children's biological father have been busted for **** by local police.
“I would characterize the family environment as dysfunctional,” Gaissert said. “It was clearly a domestic **** incident.”
“People are not shot or **** over a dropped watermelon. People shoot their family members when that person is perpetrating domestic ****,” said Maggie Beck-**** of the Georgia Commission on Family ****.
The family's neighbor Rita Whitman said she noticed indications of verbal abuse.
“It breaks my heart,” said Whitman, the mother of three teenagers. “I hate to say this because I feel like we should have said or done more, but there were times we heard him yelling at those kids. The one that he ****, he did yell at him a lot. You did see the occasional **** of anger. He would just use terrible language, cussing so bad at that one boy."
“I only witnessed that two or three times but I just minded my own business," Whitman said. But I never, ever dreamed it was dysfunctional to the point that there would be ****.”
Gaissert said: “It’s very tragic. I’ve done this for a long time and it’s always the children that particularly affect me. It’s a very difficult task professionally when you have to deal with child victims of crime. It’s going to affect this community and it’s going to take time to heal.”
As of Monday night, the boys' mother, Crystal Levigne, could not be reached.
Very bizarre and sad. I have a family member in SC whose daughter was kidnapped by her "friend". Thankfully they found her still alive...in Ohio. Besides being arrested and extradited back to SC, I'm not sure what happened to the kidnapper.
That's a blessing that she was returned unharmed. God was looking after her.
