The man accused of kidnapping and attempting to rob a Columbus business owner at gunpoint has a history of criminal behavior.
Demarquis Sentell Tate, 21, of 405 Apple St. in Columbus, was charged with an armed robbery at the B-Quik on 31st Avenue in 2005, and was charged with helping another prisoner escape from Lowndes County Circuit Court later that year using Tate”s personal information. In 2006, Tate was charged with one count of sale of cocaine and three counts of possession. He was not convicted of the robbery or escape charges.
Tate was released from Walnut Grove halfway house, where he was held on the cocaine conviction because he was a minor, on April 12, and was on probation before being arrested Wednesday.
Tate is charged with kidnapping and armed robbery after forcing George Young, owner of George”s BP on Waterworks Road, out of his store at gunpoint, apparently to make a withdrawal from Young”s bank account. Tate hid in the back seat of Young”s 1999 Buick LeSabre with a revolver as Young drove away.
Around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, a regular customer of Young”s noticed the store owner wasn”t there although his personal belongings remained, and the doors were unlocked. Regular customers at the scene said Young won”t even take a bathroom break without locking the store.
The Columbus Police Department was notified of the suspicious circumstance and began searching for Young”s car. CPD Lt. Oscar Lewis spotted Young driving toward his store one 14th Avenue North around 9 a.m. and radioed other officers to converge on the area.
It is suspected Young and Tate were returning to the store for a blank check to be made out for cash. The till at George”s BP had not been touched.
Young”s car stopped for an oncoming train several hundred yards from his store, with four police cars behind him. When Lewis approached Young”s vehicle on foot, Young got out of the car and informed the officer Tate was still inside. Then, Tate got behind the wheel of Young”s car and attempted to drive on the rocks alongside the railroad tracks.
When the vehicle became stuck, Tate jumped out and fled on foot, toward the fenced-in area behind Phillips” Contracting.
Officer Terry Dentry, assistant commander of investigations, spotted Tate hiding behind Phillips” Contracting, on the other side of the chain-link fence. Officer Wayne McLemore pulled up near the trailer Tate was hiding behind, between Tate and Dentry, and exited his vehicle.
Dentry motioned to McLemore that Tate was behind him. McLemore turned to find Tate walking behind him with the revolver in his hand. McLemore pulled his weapon on Tate, who was not threatening with the revolver.
Tate eventually dropped his gun, but would not comply with officers” commands and was tazed. He is being held in the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center.
George Young declined to comment on the ordeal Thursday morning, but his wife, Mable Young, who manages Young”s Christian Academy on Byrnes Circle, said her husband was doing well and had returned to work Wednesday evening.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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