Man's death becomes Chattanooga's 23rd homicide of 2011

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1644 Greenwood Road

1644 Greenwood Road

The roads leading to 1644 Greenwood Road were draped with yards of yellow tape. Bullets and casings littered the block as Chattanooga police investigators combed streets, yards and bushes surrounding the crime scene.

A little after 11 a.m. Friday, an EMS crew emerged from the small house, wheeling out a stretcher holding the body of 37-year-old Reginald Clark - Chattanooga's 23rd homicide of 2011.

That's nearly double the dozen homicides the city had at this time last year.

Police say Clark got in a fight with several men while he was at the 807 Fire and Ice club. Eventually Clark went to his home with friends, but around 3 a.m. several of the men from the fight burst into the home, shooting and killing Clark, police said.

No one else was injured, but officers at the scene said a firefight likely broke out as the suspects fled.

Candas Hensley was driving to visit Clark on Friday morning when she was forced to stop her car because of all the police tape.

"And I just thought, 'Oh my God, that's Reggie's house, isn't it? Please tell me it's not Reggie,'" Hensley said.

Hensley said Clark was a good friend and the father of several children.

"He'd fix your car and he wouldn't charge you. He'd give you the shirt off his back," she said through tears.

At least 12 of this year's shooting victims have been slain in East Chattanooga, according to newspaper archives.

"All these people dying for no reason, dying for such stupid stuff," said Hensley's friend, Amber Simpson, as she looked at the crime scene down the hill from her car. "Not getting to live out their lives because of some stupid fight."

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