Daytona Beach, FL – A 26-year-old Virgin Islands native is convicted by a jury for shooting a neighbor in the face just outside of his Daytona Beach apartment.
Alliston A. George was found guilty on Friday of attempted 1st-degree murder with a firearm in the October 2014 shooting of Thomas Lawrence.
George’s sentencing hearing will be at a later date, according to Spencer Hathaway, a spokesman for 7th Circuit State Attorney RJ Larizza.
“The defendant is subject to the ’10-20-Life’ statute which requires a 25 year-to-life sentence to be imposed,” Hathaway noted.
George was arrested by the Daytona Beach Police Department at a home on Division Street less than 24 hours after the incident at an apartment complex near the corner of 6th Street and Kennedy Road.
DBPD says some of Lawrence’s friends were already taking him to Halifax Health Medical Center in a black Chevy Trailblazer by the time dispatchers got the call for help around 11 PM on the night of Ocober 23, 2014.
According to the arrest report, Lawrence and various witnesses told DBPD it all started when he and George – a man he knew by the nickname of “Dred” – got into a verbal argument about an incident at a park earlier in the evening which involved narcotics.
From there, according to those witnesses, George purposely bumped Lawrence physically as he entered his apartment and came out a few minutes later with a .380 caliber gun in his hand, walking towards Lawrence and shooting him once in the face.
According to the report, George took off on foot with the gun as Lawrence stumbled back into his apartment, at which point some of his friends called police and took him to the hospital.
DBPD says the bullet George fired lodged near one of Lawrence’s ear drums, but Lawrence was able to pick George out of a photo lineup after he got medical treatment.
2 witnesses also picked George – who also goes by the nickname of “Spice” – out of a photo lineup as the man who shot Lawrence, per the report.
Alliston A. George (mugshot courtesy VCJ)
Copyright 2015 Southern Stone Communications.