Number of suspects facing charges grows in Savannah square shootout that injured 11

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A growing number of suspects are facing felony charges in a shootout that injured 11 people last month in a public square in the heart of Savannah’s downtown historic district.

Savannah police are seeking two men on arrest warrants charging them with aggravated assault and other crimes stemming from the May 18 violence in Ellis Square, police spokesman Neil Penttila said Monday.

That’s after police on Friday arrested 30-year-old Jacorey Daronte Porter and charged him with four counts of aggravated assault and illegal weapon possession charges. Penttila said Porter is the fifth suspect arrested in connection with the downtown shootings — a tally that doesn’t include the two additional men being sought.

Savannah Police Chief Lenny Gunther has said a late-night argument between two women led to multiple shooters opening fire just before midnight in Ellis Square, which is located amid restaurants and bars in a nightlife district popular with tourists.

No one was killed though police said 10 people were struck by gunfire and another got hurt by glass from a shattered car window. Police said all the victims were treated at a hospital and released.

Mary Susan Robichaux, who is listed in Chatham County court records as an attorney for Porter in an unrelated, pending misdemeanor case, did not immediately return an email message Monday from The Associated Press. No one answered the phone at an office number listed for her.

The violence in Ellis Square marked the worst mass shooting in Georgia’s oldest city since June 2021, when someone inside a passing car fired into a crowd of people outside a Savannah apartment complex. One person was killed and seven were wounded.