Serial abuser Shawn Gunn shot his wife in an upstairs bedroom of their Augusta home Wednesday night and then engaged in a gunfight with responding deputies from his front door, the GBI said on Friday.
The GBI’s involvement after the murder of Commen Gunn comes because Richmond County deputies shot the suspect, which requires an independent investigation into how it was handled.
The press release comes as Mr. Gunn was moved from the hospital to the Charles B. Webster Detention Center to face charges of murder, weapon possession and more.
As The Augusta Press first reported, Gunn terrorized his wife for a decade, leading to a long list of restraining orders, arrests, weak sentences and ultimately her reconciliation with the sweet-talker, according to records and relatives.
In one of the most egregious outcomes of injustice, a sheriff’s report describes a brutal assault on June 15, 2015, against the same victim that ended when two battery charges were bumped down to disorderly conduct.
The victim went by Commen Mayo in 2015 and may not have been married to him at the time.
According to the report, the victim’s own mother, Dianne Rouse, witnessed the 300-pound Gunn strike his the victim inside their residence on Kaufman Drive. She had walked in to retrieve clothing and the drunk suspect instantly began to yell at her. He called her a “b***h” for taking her own daughter to a birthday party without telling him. So he punched her in the mouth, causing her right tooth to break and her lip to cut open. When she noticed blood coming from her mouth, she went outside to leave.
But Gunn followed her to the car, opened up the driver’s side door and continued punching her. Then he took her car keys.
When she went back inside the get them, he pushed her on the couch, punched her in the back of her head, threw her onto a bed and choked her. He even bit the back of her neck.
It took the woman’s uncle and another witness to pull Gunn off of her.
Witnesses later told authorities that Gunn had initially come outside with a machete in his hand and sliced up the screen door in anger. Many people saw the abuse. One witness said she noticed the house was destroyed from the violence that occurred and heard screaming in a back bedroom as the victim begged for help.
For his part, Gunn played the victim in the 2015 case, telling authorities that Commen Mayo and family members “jumped on him.”
“Gunn stated he was in the kitchen of his residence making food when Mayo came inside the room and asked him if he liked her hair. Gunn advised Mayo her hair was beautiful long or short but stated Mayo got angry at his answer,” the report says.
He claimed that Commen Mayo was the aggressor and he simply defended himself.
The evidence and witnesses didn’t support that claim, and he was charged with battery – family violence and an additional battery charge for violence against the witness. Yet, just two months later, prosecutors dropped the battery charge and reduced the family violence battery down to disorderly conduct. The punishment: 12 months of probation, 20 hours of community service and a $400 fine.
He would go on to continue the abuse that got so repetitive that deputies threatened to arrest them both for maintaining a disorderly household. He was charged with aggravated stalking, violating a restraining order, trespassing and more. The longest jail sentence he got was for 75 days.
On Wednesday morning, his reign of terror ended in the victim’s death. After a gunfight with Gunn, deputies entered their townhouse on Brandywine Place, and they found his wife deceased in an upstairs bedroom.
“The GBI will conduct an independent investigation of the officer-involved shooting and once complete, it will be given to the Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office for review,” a press release says.
Anyone with information is asked to call the GBI at 706-595-2575. Anonymous tips can also be submitted by calling 1-800-597-TIPS(8477), online at https://gbi.georgia.gov/submit-tips-online, or by downloading the See Something, Send Something mobile app.
This is the 23rd officer involved shooting the GBI has been requested to investigate in 2023.
Convict, and then send to the Classification Center for execution. The family deserves closure. He no longer deserves the capacity to consume oxygen. Taxpayers do not need to feed, clothe, or shelter this person, once he is convicted.
I cannot for the life of me understand this. So many failures both privately and publicly. I pray that she has found her peace but agree with Mr. Jones’ opinion.
So this guy kills his wife, shoots at the cops, gets wounded, taken to the hospital and the GBI has to investigate “an officer shooting”????? Maybe the cops shouldn’t have pulled their guns out at all! Just let the creep shoot all his bullets or tire himself out? Is that what they should have done? “Ya’ll ain’t shootin! Why aren’t ya’ll shootin? This is no fun for me to be shootin’ all the bullets! I’ll just give up. I can always claim self-defense in the case of my wife. It worked before. It’ll work this time. Maybe they’ll let me go on a missdemeaner (sic). Yeah, that’ll work.”
I pray Mr. Gunn is convicted of murder and sentenced to life with NO possibility of parole. Once he’s in prison may he then find someone to beat his ass on a daily basis.
There should no doubt be a GBI investigation as to why these ARC cops don’t return being shot out very well.