By ROBIN SHANNON

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – A Garyville man was arrested Monday after firing shots into an apartment during a burglary incident, said authorities from St. John the Baptist Sheriff’s Office.

A 20-year-old woman and her three children, aged 4, 2, and 4 months old, were sleeping in the East 13th Street apartment at the time of the incident, but were not injured in the shooting.

Maj. Mike Tregre, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office said Mervin Williams Jr., 24, 168 Stout St., Garyville, removed an air-conditioning unit from a bedroom window of the apartment in the Reserve Oaks Complex around 6 a.m. Monday. Tregre said Williams fired four shots from an AK-47 assault rifle, which penetrated multiple walls of the residence. Tregre said Williams maintained that someone in the apartment had fired on him, and he was returning fire, but investigators on the scene found no evidence to support Williams’ assertion.

According to Sheriff’s Office reports on the incident, it was determined that Williams was once involved in a relationship with the woman who owns the apartment, but it was broken off months ago. A witness in the complex, which is under the operation of the St. John Parish Public Housing Authority, was able to identify Williams as the shooter.

After the shooting, Williams jumped a ditch and fled the scene in a burgundy vehicle. Tregre said Williams was arrested without incident a short time later at the Dupont Chemical plant, where he was employed as a contract worker. Investigators recovered the weapon used in the shooting from Williams’ vehicle, which was parked at the job site.

Tregre said Williams was booked with four counts of attempted first-degree murder, and aggravated criminal damage to property. He is being held at the Sherman Walker Correctional Facility in LaPlace on $605,000 bond. The case is still under investigation, and anyone with further information is asked to contact the Sheriff’s Office at 985-652-9514.