Gunfire tore through two homes on Baldwin Street in LaGrange early Sunday, sending officers to the 1100 block just after 3 a.m. and setting off an investigation that ended with a local man in handcuffs on aggravated assault charges. Travis L. Towns, identified by police as a LaGrange resident, was arrested after detectives said he ran from officers and was later found carrying illegal narcotics.
According to the FOX 5 Atlanta, bullets struck an occupied house and an unoccupied house on Baldwin Street, and police say the gunfire damaged two homes on the street in total. The LaGrange Police Department reported the gunfire in an official press release, and its Criminal Investigation Division linked Towns to the shooting during the follow-up investigation. Officers returned to the neighborhood around 11 a.m. Sunday as part of that inquiry, the outlet reports.
Police have not released details about what led up to the gunfire, and the motive behind the shooting remains unknown. The investigation is described as active and ongoing, per the same report.
Fleeing, Drugs and Multiple Charges
When officers moved to take Towns into custody, he ran from them, according to the report. Police eventually arrested him and say they found illegal narcotics in his possession. Beyond the aggravated assault charge tied to the shooting itself, authorities charged Towns with obstruction and a drug violation, though the exact classification and quantity of the narcotics recovered has not been disclosed.
Under Georgia's aggravated assault statute, O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21, firing shots into homes or toward people constitutes the felony even when no one is physically struck or injured, according to Ross & Pines. That charge alone carries a mandatory statutory prison sentence of 1 to 20 years upon conviction, per Canton GA Lawyers.
The obstruction charge Towns faces could be treated as a misdemeanor carrying up to 12 months in jail if his flight involved no physical resistance, but Georgia law escalates the charge to a felony punishable by 1 to 5 years in prison if acts or threats of violence were made against officers, according to Peach State Lawyers. Separately, unlawful possession of Schedule I or Schedule II narcotics under the Georgia Controlled Substances Act is prosecuted as a felony punishable by 1 to 15 years in prison for a first offense, per Michael Fulcher Law.
Part of a Troubling Pattern in LaGrange
The Baldwin Street shooting adds to a run of residential gunfire that has rattled LaGrange neighborhoods throughout 2026. In May, a shooting on Revis Street left a 19-year-old woman injured, and in June a fatal shooting on Dix Street led to murder charges, Hoodline's earlier reporting shows.
FBI crime statistics compiled for 2024 indicate LaGrange recorded 207 violent crimes among roughly 32,833 residents, a rate of 630.5 per 100,000 people — about 70 percent above the national average, according to Hoodline's prior coverage. LaGrange, the county seat of Troup County in west-central Georgia, sits along Interstates 85 and 185 about 60 miles southwest of Atlanta and serves as the county's commercial and judicial center, per the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
Statewide, aggravated assault is the single largest category of reported violent crime, accounting for 11.9 percent of all violent offenses and totaling 4,453 reported incidents with 1,260 arrests in 2023, according to Georgia Bureau of Investigation data cited by Morrison & Hughes.
Police Seek Tips as Investigation Continues
Towns was booked following his arrest; adult suspects arrested by LaGrange police are typically processed at the Troup County Jail on Sam Walker Drive, which handles central detention operations for the county. LaGrange police are encouraging anyone with information about the Baldwin Street shooting to contact Det. J. Hutcheson at 706-883-2638.
Tipsters can also submit information anonymously through the Tip411 mobile app, the Tip411 online portal, or by texting LAGRANGE to 847411. The system is a web-based tip management platform developed by CitizenObserver that allows residents to send encrypted, anonymous leads to investigators. With the shooting's cause still unexplained, detectives are relying on the public to help fill in what happened before the gunfire erupted on Baldwin Street before dawn Sunday.
