A DeKalb County judge sentenced 46-year-old Homer Wright to 20 years in prison without the possibility of parole this week for shooting a man in the foot after refusing to give him a dollar outside a Lithonia gas station. The confrontation, captured entirely on surveillance video, escalated from a simple request for spare change into a pistol-whipping and a gunshot wound that sent the victim running to a neighbor's house for help.
According to Atlanta News First, 46-year-old JQuante Lenon approached Wright's pickup truck at a gas station in the 6000 block of Hillandale Drive and asked him for a dollar. Wright refused, and Lenon walked away and sat down on a nearby curb, according to the outlet's reporting on the DeKalb County District Attorney's account of the incident.
Instead of letting the matter end there, Wright drove his truck over to where Lenon was sitting, got out, and brandished a gun. He pistol-whipped Lenon in the head, and when Lenon stood up and struck Wright in the face, Wright shot him in the foot, per the case details laid out by Public Technologies. Gas station surveillance cameras recorded the entire sequence, from the initial verbal exchange through the pistol-whipping, the physical struggle, and the shooting.
Wounded Man Fled to a Neighbor's Home for Help
The shooting happened around 10:46 p.m. on June 23, 2025. After being shot in the left foot, Lenon ran from the gas station to a home on Fields Drive in Lithonia, where he asked a neighbor to call 911, according to the same case account. DeKalb County Police officers responded to that address rather than the gas station itself.
Detectives with the DeKalb County Police Department obtained arrest warrants for Wright and took him into custody without incident on June 30, 2025, one week after the shooting. The surveillance footage from the gas station became the central piece of evidence that corroborated Lenon's account of the confrontation.
Jury Convicts Wright on Three Counts
A DeKalb County jury found Wright guilty on July 22 of three counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The trial concluded more than a year after the shooting that put Lenon in the hospital.
DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gregory A. Adams handed down the sentence on Tuesday, ordering Wright to serve 20 years in custody. Adams sentenced Wright under Georgia's Recidivist Statute, O.C.G.A. § 17-10-7(c), which strips parole eligibility from repeat felony offenders. Wright qualified as a recidivist because of prior convictions for two armed robberies and a separate conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, a record that legally mandated the no-parole condition on his sentence.
DA's Office Points to Escalation Over a Minor Dispute
The case was prosecuted by DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston's office. WSB-TV Channel 2 reported that the 20-year no-parole term stood out as a significant sentence given how far the confrontation escalated from what began as a minor interaction over a single dollar.
The case adds to a string of recent gun violence reported at gas stations and retail corridors across Lithonia and south DeKalb County, including a shooting that left one wounded at a Chevron in June and another that injured a person along Turner Hill Road earlier this month. Wright's sentencing closes out a case that began with a request for spare change and ended with a two-decade prison term.
