Two Charged With Attempted Murder

Mark LaFlamme, Staff Writer

Two men were behind bars Tuesday night, charged with attempted murder in a Monday night shooting on Knox Street.

Police said the victim of the attack was not struck with a bullet fired from a .22 caliber handgun.

Instead, the bullet fired in the hallway at 1 Knox St. missed and lodged in a wall.

The assailants then pistol-whipped the man they had been fighting with before fleeing into a third-floor apartment, police said.

Mohamed Qawdhan, 20, was treated for an injury to his eye suffered in the 8 p.m. fracas. Police initially feared he had been shot.

It took police nearly an hour to get the scene at Knox and Spruce streets under control Monday night. It took several more hours to interview witnesses and suspects.

By Tuesday morning, three men were charged with disorderly conduct. Two others were charged in the shooting.

Sharod Nunes and Anthony Jones, both 24, were each charged with attempted murder after questioning by detectives.

According to court documents, Nunes and Jones confronted five men in the hallway at 1 Knox St. moments before the shooting. One of the suspects pointed the handgun at Qawdhan, who pushed the weapon aside. It was at that moment the gun was fired, police said.

"Nunes stated that Jones fired the gun at a group of Somalian subjects in the hallway at 1 Knox St. because they had been harassing a female friend," Lewiston Police Detective Brian O’Malley wrote in an affidavit.

Nunes also told police that at least one of the Somali men had a knife at the time of the confrontation.

After beating Qawdhan with the gun, Nunes and Jones ran into a third-floor apartment where they had been living with a woman, police said. Not long after, the building was surrounded by police.
Officers Matt Vierling and Todd MacWhinnie searched a porch at the rear of the building and found an open window leading to one of the apartments. Shortly after, they spotted Nunes and Jones attempting to hide behind the tenement, according to the affidavit. The suspects were arrested there while other officers entered the building.

Long after police first arrived, officers remained at the scene. By midnight, they were joined by a crew from the fire department, which raised a ladder to the roof so investigators could search for the handgun.

Police found a slug from the firearm lodged in the wall above a door near the front of the building, according to the affidavit. They also found a holster in the third-floor apartment as well as marijuana and crack cocaine. Several knives were also confiscated, police said.

By Tuesday night, however, the gun had not been found after searches inside and outside the building. Police said Jones was last seen with the weapon but would not answer questions about its whereabouts.

Those arrested on disorderly conduct charges during the melee were: Muhamed Abdullah, 26; Christopher Brooks, 20, and Hubert Brooks, 18.

At the scene of the fracas Monday night, two women who live inside the building accused police of being rough with the suspects. One neighbor said officers wrestled Qawdhan to the ground before he was identified as the victim.

For police, the tense situation at 1 Knox St. Monday night brought back grim memories from 1995. On Easter morning that year, a 20-year-old New York man was gunned down and killed in an apartment inside the same building. Three Lewiston men were later convicted in the drug-related slaying.

Home | Contact us | Links | Archives