Inset: Tavarus Toliver (Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Motel 6 in Columbus, Georgia, where the shooting occurred (Google Maps).
A Georgia man has been jailed after allegedly fatally shooting another man who intervened during a dispute to defend his fiancée, according to law enforcement and witnesses.
Tavarus Toliver, 24, faces one count of murder and one count of possessing a firearm during the commission of a crime, the Columbus Police Department said in a press release.
The shooting happened Wednesday, Sept. 16, outside a Motel 6 on Victory Drive in Columbus. The victim, 34-year-old Jonathan Tennie, later died, police said.
Officers responded shortly before 5 p.m. to reports of gunfire and found Tennie suffering from a gunshot wound.
Paramedics transported Tennie to Piedmont Columbus Regional, where he was pronounced dead, according to Columbus ABC affiliate WTVM.
Police have released limited details about the case, but witnesses who spoke with the television station described the events leading up to the deadly confrontation.
Tennie’s fiancée told a WTVM reporter at the scene that a verbal dispute escalated into the fatal shooting.
The woman said Toliver was familiar to the group because he was her sister’s boyfriend. According to her account, the argument began after Tennie objected to the way Toliver was speaking to the women.
“He doesn’t like women being disrespected in any kind of manner,” she said. “Verbally, physically, anything. So he speaks out on it.”
The witness said she eventually succeeded in calming Tennie, but Toliver allegedly continued the argument. She told WTVM that Toliver then pulled out a gun and fired.
“He saved me,” the distraught woman said. “I’m here because he’s not. Over a family quarrel.”
She also spoke warmly about Tennie, recalling how he remained by her side while the couple dealt with significant personal hardship.
“We had just lost our home,” the fiancée said. “That’s why we’ve been living in hotels. We were living in our car. And he had every option to go and stay with family, but he chose to stay with me so I didn’t have to go through it alone.”
She described Tennie as devoted to family and said he treated her relatives as his own, despite the couple not yet being married.
“He loved my nephews fiercely,” she said. “He was their favorite uncle in the world.”
Toliver remains held without bond at the Muscogee County Jail. He appeared in court Friday for a bond hearing.
The post ‘He saved me’: Man shot and killed defending fiancee during altercation over ‘women being disrespected,’ witness says first appeared on Law & Crime.
