By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
An Atmore man was shot to death Saturday, January 14, when he stopped his vehicle and tried to break up a scuffle in the middle of a city street.
Atmore Police Department Sgt. Darrell McMann reported that the city’s first homicide of 2024 took place around 10:55 a.m., near the intersection of Martin Luther King Drive and Bragg Street. A 25-year-old Atmore man, Charles Dewayne Walker, has been charged with firing the fatal shots.
Reports show that APD patrol units responded to the intersection after dispatchers relayed reports of shots being fired in the area. They arrived to discover that Okeema McCants, 39, of Atmore, had been struck by several gunshots.
APD officers immediately began administering first aid to the wounded man until Medstar EMS paramedics arrived and took over. McCants was taken by ambulance to Atmore Community Hospital, where he was later officially pronounced dead.
McMann said witnesses told police McCants was driving on MLK when he “stopped his car and tried to stop a physical altercation between a group of males in the street.”
Witnesses also provided police with a description of the shooter and the vehicle he was driving, and Walker was taken into custody approximately two hours later.
McMann said Walker, who was in possession of a stolen handgun when he was arrested, is also wanted by Jefferson County authorities for theft of property.
The shooting suspect was booked into the Escambia County Detention Center on a charge of murder and remained there, without bond, early Tuesday, January 16.
Investigators are attempting to identify the subjects involved in the altercation that led to the fatal incident, McMann said.