Five men were shot Wednesday night at the intersection of Anthony Road and Mercer University Drive in Macon, and all five drove themselves to local hospitals for treatment rather than waiting for an ambulance. The wounded include a 23-year-old, a 24-year-old, and three 18-year-old men, all suffering gunshot wounds. According to medical staff, all five are listed in stable condition.
The shooting was reported to Macon-Bibb 911 at 8:53 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Bibb County Sheriff's Office, as first reported by The Georgia Sun. A ShotSpotter alert flagged gunfire in the area, and reports of shots fired also came in. The Bibb County Sheriff's Office said deputies responded to the scene and the five wounded men drove themselves to emergency rooms in private vehicles.
Deputies responded to the scene to investigate, and the sheriff's office Criminal Investigation Division is now trying to determine what led to the shooting, per the sheriff's office. No arrests have been announced, and the exact circumstances that sparked the gunfire remain unclear.
Violence Near the Anthony Road Corridor
This is not the first time the area near Anthony Road and Mercer University Drive has seen a multi-victim shooting play out the same way. In April 2023, 24-year-old Trenton Walter Harris was killed in a drive-by shooting at 3229 Mercer University Drive, a location near the Anthony Road intersection, while grilling in a parking lot, according to the Macon Telegraph. Two other injured victims in that shooting also drove themselves to local hospitals, mirroring Wednesday's pattern of self-transportation.
ShotSpotter's Role in the Response
The alert that helped direct deputies to Wednesday's scene came from ShotSpotter, the gunfire detection system.
Officials have credited technology and community outreach programs with contributing to a decline in homicides. County data reported by Police1 showed Macon-Bibb homicides fell 45% between 2022 and 2024, from 71 to 39, with youth homicides dropping 87% over the same period. Local leaders have attributed that decline to community outreach and suspect-tracking technologies.
Part of a Rough Week for Macon
Wednesday's shooting adds to a difficult stretch of violence in Macon. Just three days earlier, 21-year-old Jeremiah Quantez McCrary was fatally shot on September 20 in the 2300 block of Pio Nono Avenue, an incident that Hoodline previously reported left residents expressing frustration over ongoing gun violence in the area. That case remains part of a broader pattern; a February report detailed a 24-hour span in which five separate shootings across Macon left four people dead and five others injured.
It remains unknown which facility treated Wednesday's five victims.
How to Help
Anyone with information about Wednesday's shooting is asked to call the Bibb County Sheriff's Office at 478-751-7500 or Macon Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-877-68CRIME. Crime Stoppers pays anonymous cash rewards of up to $2,000 for tips leading to felony arrests and has awarded more than $1 million to tipsters across middle Georgia since 2000, according to the Albany Herald.
