Another man gone: Chattanooga hits 22 homicides

Hours after Kevin Albert Jr., 19, was shot to death on a sleepy street just above the Missionary Ridge tunnel, there was no physical evidence that a man died at 3100 Rosemont Drive.

No crime tape. No memorial. No blood-stained pavement or flickering candles.

Just a street. And another dead man.

Another friend. Brother. Son.

As word of his death spread, Albert’s family and friends took to social media with furor to remember Albert, a fit former football player at Brainerd High School who graduated earlier this year.

Friends said he was funny, sweet and tried to stay out of trouble. In February, the linebacker and running back was accepted to play football at Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, and he posted photos of himself in a dorm room on his Facebook page in late August.

But police say he was a validated member of the Rollin 40 Crips, and that his gang involvement may have played a role in his death. Albert was shot multiple times around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and died in the road on Rosemont Drive.

His friends deny he was in a gang.

A man who lives nearby and viewed the shooting heard six or seven gunshots and saw muzzle flashes from his bedroom window at 11:34 p.m.

“There was a shot, then a slight delay and then a bunch at once and then a slight delay and then the last shot,” the neighbor said.

He added that the car involved, an older sedan, then drove away at a normal speed. Another witness saw a red sedan headed away from the scene and investigators are searching for that vehicle, Chattanooga police Chief Fred Fletcher said Wednesday. He asked that anyone with information on the case call police.

Investigators do not have any suspects, but believe there may be multiple people involved.

Fletcher declined to say whether Albert was walking on the street or was inside the car with the shooter when he was killed, citing the ongoing investigation.

The car stopped during the shooting, a witness said.

Fletcher also declined to say how many times Albert was shot, but he did say that police have not recovered the weapon.

Investigators have no evidence the slaying is related to the ongoing gang feud sparked when 20-year-old Jordan Clark, also a Rollin 40 Crip, was shot and killed on Aug. 25, allegedly by a member of the Rollin 20 Bloods, but it’s too early for investigators to say for sure what motivated the shooting and it could be related, Fletcher said.

Police will deploy extra resources during the next few days to try to prevent retaliatory violence, he added.

Satedra Smith, Clark’s mother, said she is sick of Chattanooga’s constant violence.

“It saddens me to know there was another senseless act of violence,” she said. “Most of our children grew up together, went to the same schools or played sports together. It has got to stop.”

Police had no forewarning that Albert was a target, Lt. Glenn Scruggs said. The 19-year-old was arrested in May and charged with vandalism and domestic assault, but the charges were set to be dismissed if Albert completed anger management classes, court records show.

Albert is the 22nd person to be killed in Chattanooga so far this year, which is the same number of homicides Chattanooga had seen at this time last year. This year’s data includes the six men who died during the unprecedented July 16 attack on military facilities.

As police stood before TV cameras on Wednesday and called on witnesses to come forward and give investigators any and all information on what happened, Albert’s family and friends filled social media with memories of Albert.

“He could brighten up a whole room just by saying something crazy,” said friend Nesha Fitch. “He wasn’t a gang member or a bad person, just someone who wanted to have a good time and stay out of trouble.”

Contact staff writer Shelly Bradbury at 423-757-6525 or sbradbury@timesfreepress.com with tips or story ideas.