17-year-old faces attempted murder charge (2024)

DECATUR — Seventeen-year-old Malachi J. Blaylock is quoted as telling cops someone sent him a picture of his home and threatened to target it with gunfire, so he rode with an accomplice to the sender’s house, and they sprayed bullets at the person fired from stolen guns.

“Blaylock said he saw the person on the porch and fired approximately seven rounds in the direction of that person,” said Decatur Police Department Officer Zachary Harding who signed the affidavit.

“Blaylock said (his 17-year-old accomplice) fired approximately 10 rounds at the person… Blaylock said he stole both of the handguns in Mount Auburn from a vehicle.”

Harding said the gunfire dates to the afternoon of March 19 and both Blaylock and his accomplice were arrested the same day when police, with the help of eyewitnesses and the keen nose of a police dog, tracked down the teen gunmen after they had fled from a stolen GMC Yukon sport utility vehicle used in the shooting.

The affidavit does not list anyone being injured by the fusillade of bullets but said both a house and a car were shot-up in the 600 block of South Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

Blaylock, whose case was previously transferred to adult court, is quoted as telling police the intention of the shooting was to kill the person who was shot at. Blaylock appeared Mondayin Macon County Circuit Court where he was arraigned on a charge of attempted murder. He was also arraigned on three further charges alleging the aggravated discharge of a gun, two counts of possession of a stolen firearm, two counts of unlawful possession of a handgun by someone under 18, the aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and aiding and abetting possession of a stolen vehicle.

The accomplice will face similar charges and his case is expected to be transferred to adult court soon. Both defendants remain in juvenile detention after being denied pretrial release. A judge ruled they both posed too great a danger to the public to be freed from custody.

Harding said the suspects were found at a home in the 700 block of East Condit Street.

“(The accomplice) and Malachi Blaylock both have been known to frequent (the East Condit address). This is known due to the frequent police contact at this residence when they have been present.”

A search of the address authorized by a warrant revealed two 9mm handguns that checked out to be stolen along with a credit card belonging to the owner of the GMC Yukon. The vehicle had been stolen from the parking lot of Decatur Memorial Hospital.