FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – An Allen Superior Court judge sentenced a Fort Wayne man to 100 years in prison Monday for his involvement in a double shooting at a mobile home park in December 2021.
Fort Wayne police arrested 55-year-old Fatir Muhammad days after the shooting, which left a man and woman injured.
Allen County prosecutors eventually charged Muhammad with two counts of attempted murder, a count of burglary and a count of using a firearm in the commission of a crime. A jury found Muhammad guilty of the two attempted murder charges and the gun charge after a trial this past April.
A woman called emergency dispatchers just after 8 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2021 and told them her ex-boyfriend was shooting people in a home at the Ridgebrook Village mobile home park in the 2700 block of West Washington Center Road, according to Allen Superior Court documents.
The woman had left Muhammad’s cell phone in her car the previous day, court documents said, and he walked into the trailer uninvited and rudely confronted her about the phone. She asked him to go outside to talk about the phone, and that’s when he removed his hand from his jacket and pointed a gun at her, court documents said.
Muhammad shot the woman in the chest and throat, according to court documents, and then he shot a man inside the home.
When officers arrived, the man who had been shot said:
“She should have just given Fatir his phone because that is what he wanted.”
Medics rushed the woman to a hospital in life-threatening condition but she lived. The man suffered a non-life-threatening condition wound to his chest, court documents said.
Witnesses outside the mobile home said Muhammad arrived in a gold Cadillac and got out wearing a black top and black stocking hat. He started banging on the trailer’s window, then went inside.
Homicide detectives got surveillance video at the Executive Inn in the 1400 block of West Washington Center Road, east of the mobile home park where Muhammad was staying.
The surveillance showed Muhammad leaving the inn around 8 a.m. He then returned at 8:30 a.m., went to his room, leaving again. A gold Cadillac left around the same time, court documents said.
The owner of the gold Cadillac told a homicide detective that Muhammad asked him if he could use his car. The car owner said he was sitting in a woman’s car when she got a phone call.
“Oh (expletive), Fatir just shot two people,” she told the Cadillac owner.
When Muhammad returned to the Executive Inn, he advised the Cadillac owner “not to drive it right now,” court documents said.
After the shooting, police sent out Muhammad’s photo to local media and asked for help locating him. They told the public he as armed and dangerous, and he was eventually arrested without incident.
During his sentencing Monday, Muhammad was given 40 years for each attempted murder count and another 20 years for the using a gun in a crime charge, court records said
Muhammad told his sentencing judge he plans an appeal, according to court records.
