COLUMBIA, S.C. — Two separate killing occurred in southeast Columbia, all within a few hours of each other, Thursday night. Officers announced an arrest in one case but are still searching for leads in the other.
“When I came out the door, that’s when all the police was out here,” Levi Burch said.
Burch has lived in the Garner's Crossing Apartments area for almost ten years. He says in the decade he’s lived here this is the first time he’s seen violence in his neighborhood.
“It’s a quiet area and nothing like that ever happens out here and I like living out here, but you know yesterday it was just a tragedy out here.”
According to the Columbia Police Department, 50 year old, Pedro Leon Rodriguez, has been charged with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime in connection with a shooting that occurred at the Garner's Crossing Apartments Thursday night.
CPD officers were dispatched to the apartment complex around 8pm, when they arrived they found a 33 year old male victim. The police department says investigators have determined the shooting stemmed from a physical fight between the two men.
Rodriguez had a court appearance this morning and remains in jail.
Less than four miles away from Garner's Crossing, another shooting took place around just hours earlier at the Woodland Terrace apartments where another man was killed from a gunshot wound.
Columbia Police tells News 19 they’re still working to gather more information on what led to this incident.
It’s still a safe place it just took at the wrong time and the wrong place, nothing ever happens out here,”
The Columbia Police Department urges anyone with information about the incident or the shooter at the Woodland Terrace Apartments to call crime stoppers at 1-888-crime-sc or visit crimesc.com.