A 30-year-old man already sitting in custody on unrelated charges has now been charged in connection with a June shooting that left three people wounded inside a car on Lafayette Street in South Nashville. Azon Smith faces three counts of attempted criminal homicide and one count of employing a dangerous weapon with intent to kill, and he's being held on a $330,000 bond.
According to WSMV, the shooting happened on June 28 along Lafayette Street, a commercial corridor that borders the Napier-Sudekum neighborhood on the southern edge of downtown South Nashville, according to planning documents from the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency. Surveillance footage reviewed by detectives showed Smith exiting a silver sedan and opening fire on a Chevrolet Impala, wounding all three people inside, the station reports.
Victims Drove Themselves to the Hospital
Per the arrest affidavit, officers responded to Nashville General Hospital after three individuals arrived with gunshot wounds, having driven themselves there rather than waiting for emergency crews at the scene. The facility, located at 1818 Albion Street on the Meharry Medical College campus, serves as Metro Nashville's primary public safety-net hospital, operating a 24-hour Emergency Department with Level III trauma services.
The three victims told officers the shooting stemmed from a disagreement, and the affidavit states Smith is the brother of the man involved in that dispute. Detectives ultimately identified Smith as the suspect through the surveillance footage, the station's report notes.
Suspect Was Already Behind Bars
At the time detectives connected him to the shooting, Smith was already in custody in Davidson County on unrelated charges, and he is not eligible to post bail pending those past charges, per the same account. The case adds to Smith's history with Tennessee law enforcement: he was previously arrested by Metro Nashville police in June 2020 and charged with criminal homicide in the fatal shooting of 34-year-old Justin Sturgis at an Exxon parking lot on South Gallatin Pike in Madison, a case in which surveillance footage contradicted his claim of self-defense, according to a report from STL.News at the time.
Federal court records docketed on PacerMonitor also show the U.S. Attorney's Office filed a federal case against Smith in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in July, months before the state charges tied to the Lafayette Street shooting were announced. It remains unclear how that federal proceeding connects to, or is separate from, the state case now moving forward.
What Smith Could Face If Convicted
Attempted criminal homicide is classified as a Class A felony under Tennessee law, carrying sentencing ranges between 15 and 25 years for a first-time offender and up to 60 years for repeat violent offenders, according to court rulings documented on Justia Law. With three separate counts against him, that exposure multiplies. The weapons charge carries its own mandatory penalty: under Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-1324, employing a firearm during a dangerous felony is a Class C felony with a mandatory minimum six-year sentence served at 100 percent, which must run consecutively to any sentence on the underlying felony, per Justia Law's case records.
Part of a Broader Pattern in South Nashville
The Lafayette Street shooting adds to a string of violent incidents that have rattled the South Nashville precinct this summer, including an August 3 shooting on Parris Avenue that left a man wounded by multiple gunshots and a July shooting on University Court, as Hoodline has previously reported. Those incidents come even as citywide gun violence has trended downward overall — Metro Nashville District Attorney General Glenn R. Funk's office recorded 74 homicides in 2025, a 27.5 percent drop from 2024 and the lowest annual total since 2014, alongside a 35 percent citywide decline in non-fatal gunshot injuries.
Several open questions remain in Smith's case, including how his 2020 homicide charge in Madison was ultimately resolved, the specific nature of the federal case filed against him in July, and whether the dispute involving his brother tied into any existing tensions in the neighborhood.
