A domestic dispute led to Chattanooga’s 10th shooting in four days, according to police.
Diaz Darden, 22, was shot in the hand at a home on E. 3rd Street around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday when he opened the back door after he heard a noise in the backyard.
Darden was with a woman and her son, and the woman told police that her ex-boyfriend, Averoyan Sandridge, 27, had been fighting with her for several days. He broke the glass out of her front door a few days before the shooting and then texted her to say he’d fix it, according to an affidavit.
The woman also showed police text messages that Sandridge sent her in which he asked why another man was staying in her house, and her phone records showed that Sandridge called her just moments after the shooting on Tuesday.
The woman also told police that her son was standing in the kitchen, in the path of the bullet, and would have been hit if the bullet had missed Darden’s hand.
Police found Sandridge hiding inside his grandparent’s house on Ivy Street and arrested the 27-year-old. He had bleach all over his hands, according to police, and seemed sweaty and out-of-breath when he was discovered.
Sandridge is charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated domestic assault and reckless endangerment. His bond has not yet been set.
The shooting was the 10th in Chattanooga in four days, as a spate of gang violence has resulted in at least six shootings, including the killing of a 17-year-old man and the wounding of two pregnant women.
Police are pouring resources into the most violent areas to try to stem the pace of the shootings.