4 people arrested in deadly Mississippi shooting

By PATRICIA MAZZEI

Four people have been arrested in connection with a deadly shooting in which six people died in rural Mississippi over the weekend, the FBI announced Monday.

Three of the suspects — Morgan Lattimore, 25; Teviyon L. Powell, 29; and William Bryant, 29 — were arrested on charges of capital murder, according to the FBI’s field office in Jackson. A fourth person, Latoya A. Powell, 44, was arrested on a charge of attempted murder, officials said.

“Other arrests are pending as this investigation continues,” the FBI said in a brief statement Monday night that did not include any more details about the investigation. It was unclear whether any of the four people arrested had legal representation.

The shooting took place around midnight Friday in Leland, a town in the Mississippi Delta with fewer than 4,000 people, as a large crowd celebrated homecoming weekend at Fourth and Main streets. It appeared to have been set off by a disagreement among several people, according to the FBI.

The Jackson field office released photos late Sunday of three men and a woman shown in surveillance video and identified at the time as “unknown suspects.” It also set up a website seeking tips from the public.

The shooting in Leland was the deadliest of three attacks that took place in small towns across Mississippi between Friday and Saturday and that left at least eight people dead and others injured. The other two shootings took place on public high school campuses that were hosting football games in Heidelberg and Rolling Fork.

Homecoming is a particularly celebratory time in much of rural Mississippi during the heart of football season. The spate of shootings led residents and local officials to decry the region’s strong gun culture and problems with gun violence.

The six people killed in Leland were Oreshama Johnson, 41; Calvin Plant, 19; Shelbyona Powell, 25; Kaslyn Johnson, 18; Amos Brantley, 18; and JaMichael Jones, 34, according to the Washington County’s coroner’s office.