Garrian "Big G" King
A principal figure in the biggest shootout in Chattanooga since the Civil War has been sentenced to serve 134 months in Federal prison.
Garrian "Big G" King, 29, appeared Friday morning before Judge Travis McDonough in the incident on McCallie Avenue on June 5, 2022, in which three people were killed and 14 injured.
Judge McDonough sentenced King to 110 months for being a felon in possession of a gun and another 24 months on a prior revoked sentence. It was the fifth felon in possession conviction for King.
Authorities said one person at the scene near a Walgreens and Mary's Bar was dead and another died after being taken to the hospital. Many who were shot were taken in personal vehicles to either Erlanger or Parkridge Hospitals.
Prosecutor Chris Poole said King arrived at the scene at 2125 McCallie at 2:07 a.m. in a stolen Chevrolet Suburban. The vehicle was backed into a parking space at Walgreens. King and two other black males got out of the Suburban.
The prosecutor said one of the men was Rodney Harris, described as a fellow gang member with King whom King had met in prison. He said Harris was wearing a ski mask and carrying an AR rifle that King had provided him. He said King's girlfriend had bought a large amount of ammunition for the rifle the day before. He said King admitted buying the gun earlier at a gun show in East Ridge.
Prosecutor Poole said it is believed that 14 different guns were fired during the melee that left the ground strewn with shell casings.
Harris was shot 17 times, but he somehow survived. The prosecutor said King thought Harris was dead and he reached down and retrieved the AR rifle from him before leaving.
Two other guns were found in a search of King's residence along with marijuana, fentanyl, a digital scale, baggies and $19,000 in cash.
He had earlier served 34 months of a 36-month federal prison for the same offense - felon with a gun.
Judge McDonough said King had put numerous people who lived nearby in danger that night.
He said he had been given an opportunity when he was on a football scholarship at Baylor School, then went to college, but he said he had squandered it and always went back to guns.
A few years after his graduation from Baylor King was among those charged with setting off firecrackers inside Hamilton Place Mall to cover up a robbery. King got a three-year sentence in that case in which several people were injured in the ensuing panic at the mall on the day after Christmas 2016.
Prosecutor Poole said that King could have faced even longer time in prison. He said the McCallie Avenue offense happened three weeks before a stiffer law on felons with guns went into effect raising the sentencing level to 15 years.
King said that he was not involved in any violent acts himself in any of the gun charge cases. He said, "Just because you own a gun doesn't make you a bad person."