Lubbock, TX: Police probe attempted murder, suicide

Posted: February 20, 2011 - 12:15am
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Shots rang out in a Central Lubbock neighborhood, leaving one man dead and a woman with serious injuries and sending a panic through a 3-year-old girl’s birthday party. Police arrived within three minutes of Saturday's4:50 p.m.call of shots fired in a Lubbock house, said Lubbock Police Capt. Greg Stevens.

“We’re looking at this as an attempted murder/suicide situation — the suicide being successful,” he said.

Toni Lusk, 29, had called 911 reporting she’d been shot multiple times by her boyfriend in a house in the 2200 block of 25th Street. Forty-six-year-old Mack Jenkins, she told 911, fatally shot himself with a handgun after using the weapon on her. Police arrived to find the man dead inside the house.

Lusk, who was seriously injured with multiple gunshot wounds, was taken by ambulance to University Medical Center. She was in serious but stable condition late Saturday, according to a hospital supervisor.

A 4-year-old girl, likely Lusk’s daughter, was just outside the house when the shots were fired, Stevens said.

In a lawn just across the street, a group of girls celebrating a 3-year-old's birthday were jumping and bouncing in an inflatable playhouse filled with pink balloons just before the shots were fired, said 14-year-old Deondre Washington, who was in his front yard about four houses down the street during the attack. Washington said he saw a woman running back and forth between the two homes and yelling. “She ran back (to the party house) and then I heard a pow and people were screaming,” he said. The girls at the party were taken inside the house hosting the party.

Residents of that house said they could not answer media questions about the shooting, citing police had told them not to.

By 5:15 p.m., police homicide investigators had taped off the yard around the house and were taking photos, collecting evidence and talking with neighbors. Stevens said police recovered a handgun from the house and were continuing to investigate the shooting.

It was not clear late Saturday if the 4-year-old girl was Jenkins’ daughter, he said.
The child, who was not injured, was with family after the shooting and Child Protective Services was expected to respond.