Raleigh Police have detained two students after a Wednesday night crime spree that victimized a man and seven students in four separate incidents.
James Darnell Lyons and Timothy O’Brian Williams are first-year students in turfgrass management and general agriculture, respectively, at the Agricultural Institute. Lyons has been charged with five counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, one count of discharging a weapon into occupied property, two counts of armed robbery and two counts of attempted armed robbery.
Williams has been charged with six counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, two counts of armed robbery and two counts of attempted armed robbery.
The Raleigh Police Department said they intended to charge both suspects the same way, but a clerical error has resulted in different charges for each. The department intends to amend the charges today at Williams’ first court appearance.
According to Jim Sughrue, public information officer for the department, Michael James Woods was stopped at the intersection of Hillsborough Street and Woodburn Road around 1:15 a.m. when a car pulled up behind him and flashed its lights. At least one suspect got out of the vehicle with a handgun and attempted to rob him. Woods drove off.
Around 1:45 a.m., a blue pick-up truck stopped next to a car with four students at the intersection of Hillsborough Street and St. Mary’s Street. One male got out of the blue pick-up truck, pointed a gun through the driver’s side back seat and demanded the passengers’ money and wallets.
“We proceeded to do so,” David James Tucker, senior in materials science and engineering and passenger in the car, said. “He got some cash and wallets and got back in his car and pulled away.”
According to the police report, the suspect stole two black leather wallets and about $12 in cash from Tucker and David Woodard, also a passenger. While the robbery was taking place, friends of the victims approached the intersection in another car.
“We saw some people leaning in their car,” William Maxwell, a junior in agricultural business management, said. “We didn’t recognize them as our friends so we thought something was going on and all of a sudden they ran from the car and jumped in their car and sped off.”
Maxwell and three other students in the car followed the suspects to Oberlin Road. When they were about 50 yards away, Maxwell said, one suspect leaned out of the window and fired a shot at their car.
“Initially we thought maybe we can get their license plate number,” Maxwell said. “But that didn’t really work out when they started shooting [at] us.”
The shot didn’t hit the car or any passengers.
Shortly after the incidents, an additional attempted robbery was reported near Pullen Park. Lindsey Ranck, a senior in communication, was stopped at the intersection of Cates Avenue and Pullen Road when one of the suspects tried to enter her vehicle.
Ranck fled, running the red light, and one of the suspects fired at her car. The bullet struck the vehicle, went through the driver’s seat and grazed her left arm but did not penetrate the skin.
Sughrue said the crimes were allegedly committed by the same suspects, Lyons and Williams. Late Thursday morning, Sughrue reported the two men were taken into custody and were being detained.
Woods reported the attempted robbery late Thursday afternoon in response to media coverage of the other incidents.
“As a standard practice, we will look at other open cases that we have to determine whether or not either of the suspects might have been responsible for additional crimes,” Sughrue said. “But at this point those are the only things they have been connected with.”
Both Lyons and Williams reside in Becton Hall, where at least one of them was arrested. The students involved in the incident at the intersection of Hillsborough Street and St. Mary’s Street provided a partial license tag number for the police, who were able to identify the vehicle when it was parked near the residence hall.
Maxwell said that the incident has had an effect on his opinion about safety in the Raleigh area.
“Lately I hear about numerous accounts about people being robbed at gunpoint,” he said, referencing two on-campus armed robberies in January. “It’s getting rather ridiculous. I mean, it just seems like every week there’s a new crime-related incident.”
About mid-afternoon Thursday, Raleigh Police conducted a search at Pullen Park in response to the incidents, Sughrue said. He declined, however, to elaborate on what was being searched for, saying the department conducts searches only when they feel it is appropriate.