Atmore men charged in Patterson St. Apartments assault
By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Two Atmore men have been arrested in connection with the February 19 beating and shooting of another local man at Patterson Street Apartments.
Atmore Police Chief Chuck Brooks reported in a Tuesday, February 23, press release that 52-year-old Terry James Burrell was arrested Monday and charged with one count of attempted murder in the assault on 58-year-old Donald Dewayne Dortch.
Escambia County Detention Center’s records showed that Burrell was still in jail, without bond, late Tuesday morning.
Brooks said Maurice White, 49, also of Atmore, was arrested Tuesday morning by APD officers, with assistance from an Alabama Department of Corrections tracking-dog team. He is charged with attempted murder and first-degree domestic violence in the attack on Dortch.
The assault was reported around 6:45 p.m., and patrol officers were sent to the apartment complex, which has been the scene of several shootings in recent months. They found Dortch lying in the street with “severe lacerations to the face from what appeared to be a gunshot injury.”
The victim was taken by ambulance to Atmore Community Hospital, from which he was later airlifted to an unspecified Pensacola, Fla. medical facility. His current condition is not known.
According to police reports, Dortch was inside a unit of the apartment complex when two male suspects — later identified as Burrell and White — “entered the apartment without consent” and began assaulting him. Witnesses told police one of the suspects, later determined to be White, was an ex-boyfriend of the unit’s female resident.