Staff Reports
(Buford, Ga.) — Deputies with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call about an entering auto in progress around 2:30 a.m. on Friday, June 14, 2019, on Friendship Farm Drive in unincorporated Buford in southern Hall County. A male was seen trying to open the doors of a resident’s vehicle before getting into a car that left the neighborhood.
Deputies immediately began searching nearby areas looking for the suspect’s car. They located the suspect’s car on Windgate Drive. A deputy turned on his car’s blue lights and blocked the road.
The driver of the suspect vehicle, which was reported stolen out in Paulding County, Ga., tried to go around the deputy’s vehicle but crashed into a tree. The four occupants of the suspect vehicle go out of the vehicle and fled on foot. Following a brief foot chase, deputies arrested one of the suspects, Malik Javon Gray, age 20 of Atlanta, Ga.
Deputies set up a perimeter to look for the other three suspects with the assistance of the Braselton Police Department and the Flowery Branch Police Department. A canine unit from the Georgia Department of Corrections also responded to the incident but they were unsuccessful in locating the three additional suspects that had fled on foot.
Two handguns and several electronic devices were recovered from the stolen car. Deputies link these four suspects to four entering auto incidents earlier that morning.
Hall County Sheriff’s Office investigators are actively working this case. They are reviewing footage from a camera registered with the Sheriff’s Office Citizens’ Watch program.
Deputies booked Gray into the Hall County Jail on charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, criminal attempt of entering auto, and obstruction. A bond for $12,700 was set and Gray bonded out of the jail on Monday.
Hall County would like to remind members of the community to keep their vehicles locked, even when they are at home. They also urge people to not leave anything of value in their vehicle or at least move them out of plain sight.
