22-year-old man found guilty in Perimeter Mall food court gunfight

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - A 22-year-old man will spend years in custody at the DeKalb County Jail over a shooting inside Perimeter Mall in January.

On Wednesday, a DeKalb County jury found 22-year-old Raymon Pierre guilty of aggravated assault.

Officials say the charges stem from the afternoon of 4:45 p.m., when Dunwoody police officers responded to a call of shots fired at the mall.

Arriving at the mall, officers found shoppers fleeing in terror and 20-year-old Che’saun Lacey shot in his chest in the lower-level food court.

"I was eating my burrito and I heard bang, bang, bang, bang, bang," Haynes Vicente, who was in the food court during the shooting, told FOX 5 afterward. "I just got up, grabbed my girl, and we ran."

Witnesses told police that Lacey had been in an argument with three other men before the bullets started flying. Bystanders were able to share a photo with police that led them to identify the shooter as 21-year-old Roykell Holder.

Investigators say surveillance footage from the mall showed Pierre started arguing with Lacey, who started to walk away, turned around, and flashed a gun. Both Lacey and Holder then started firing - hitting Lacey in the chest and Holder in the hand.

That same afternoon, DeKalb County police responded to a 911 call about a person shot on Pleasantdale Crossing. According to officials, Holder's mother had called 911 to report her son had been shot at the mall. 

Investigators quickly connected the address of the 911 call to the registration of the car that Holder, Pierre, and the third man used to get away from the scene. Both Holder and Pierre were arrested near the Pleasantdale Crossing apartment complex.

After his conviction, a DeKalb County Superior Court judge sentenced Pierre to 20 years with six in confinement and the rest on probation. As a condition of his release, Pierre has to stay away from all DeKalb County malls.

The trials for Holder and Lacey are still pending.