Two more Grambling State University students were arrested Monday, bringing the total charged to six in connection with the invasion of a dorm room and the possession of a stolen firearm.
Bernard Johnson and Bransum Elmore, both 19 and from Ruston, were arrested Monday afternoon for possession of a firearm on a school campus and illegal possession of a stolen firearm.
On March 2, a group of men allegedly forced their way into a campus dorm room and assaulted and terrorized the students inside, threatening them with a pistol.
Two occupants of the Pinchback Hall suite on the GSU campus reported a former roommate and three other individuals entered their rooms and assaulted them.
The two victims said they were beaten and that one of the men brandished a semiautomatic pistol. The man with a pistol allegedly threatened, “If you say anything, you’re gone.” The men rummaged through the rooms during the assault.
GSU Police observed cuts and bruises on the faces of the victims. Police found all four room dorms in the suite had been kicked open with damages estimated at $10,000.
Johnson, one of the alleged victims occupying the dorm room, was charged Monday after GSU investigators received information he was attempting to sell a pistol. Police reportedly obtained photographs taken in the Pinchback Hall dorm room showing the pistol Johnson was selling.
Upon questioning, Johnson admitted he had possessed the firearm in the photos on campus, having stolen it from one student and then sold it to another student for $150.
Officers contacted Elmore, the purported purchaser of the pistol, at his Wheatley Hall dorm room. Elmore initially denied possession of the gun, but it was located in a search of the room.
It is unclear if the Taurus pistol recovered from Elmore was the item sought by the group who entered and searched Johnson’s dorm room and attacked him and another student. The pistol, which included an extended magazine, was reported stolen in St. Louis, Mo., the hometown of two of the students arrested in the case.
The three men taken into custody Thursday included the former roommate, Melvin Priestly, 19, and Carteare Gordon, 22, both of St. Louis, Mo., along with Derreion Hinton, 19, of Jacksonville, Tex., were booked at the Lincoln Parish Detention Center for home invasion. Sidney Franklin, 19, of Montgomery, Ala. was arrested Friday. He claimed he was the lookout watching for police.
This information has been provided by a law enforcement agency as public information. Persons named or shown in photographs or video as suspects in a criminal investigation, or arrested and charged with a crime, have not been convicted of any criminal offense and are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
