Police seeking charges, say bounty hunters shot two men

Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

Police in Tennessee say they are asking a grand jury to bring charges because investigators believe bounty hunters shot two men in a wild incident last weekend in which one of the men was fatally wounded.

Clarksville Police spokesman Jim Knoll said authorities will ask a county grand jury Monday to bring charges after the shooting last weekend in which he says neither man shot was the person whom bounty hunters were trying to serve with a warrant

Authorities have declined to divulge many details about the shooting before the case heads to the grand jury.

The man who died has been identified as 24-year-old Jalen Johnson, a father of three from Clarksville. His uncle said the victim was an innocent man gunned down in a case of mistaken identity.

“Absolutely, they were out of control,” Johnson’s uncle, Toni Jenkins, said of the bounty hunters. “The objective of a bounty hunter is to identify a suspect and serve them with a warrant and bring them to jail, but that’s not what happened.”

Knoll said the bounty hunters confronted four men in a car parked at a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market in Clarksville just after midnight April 23. Shots were fired, and bounty hunters then chased the men for nearly seven miles, according to Knoll. He added that no one in the car had any outstanding warrant.

The police spokesman wouldn’t say how many bounty hunters were involved, when the shots were fired and what exactly transpired in the parking lot. It’s not clear why the bounty hunters confronted the men in the vehicle.