N. Chas. police seek two in Wednesday's shooting

Martez Brown

Benjamin Goss

North Charleston police arrested one man and were searching for others in Wednesday's shooting that wounded two in the Ashley Shores community.

The department identified the men sought on charges of assault and battery with intent to kill as Martez Brown and Benjamin Goss, both 24.

Officers had responded to the Ashley Shores Drive, which is near Azalea Drive, around 3 a.m. to find a man with a gunshot wound in the back, wrote Spencer Pryor, police public information officer, in a release. Brian Lenard Ancrum, 18, of West Ashley was taken to Medical University Hospital, which had no information to release on his condition.

Officers later met with a second man, 18-year-old Deontray Bellman, at Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital where he was being treated for a gunshot wound to the left arm, the release says. Agents from the Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services arrested Bellman at North Charleston police headquarters later that day and officers later served him with a warrant in the shooting.

Police gave this account of the Ashley Shores shooting and related events:

Witnesses reported seeing three or four men armed with handguns and a rifle exiting a white four-door automobile and start firing toward of Ancrum and others. Officers found the automobile described by witnesses at Bellman's house, where they also found an AK-47 rifle in a bedroom closet.

Within two hours, multiple gunshots were fired at two houses. One house on Gary Drive in the Waylyn neighborhood was thought to be associated with Brown and another on Orchid Avenue in the adjacent Brentwood neighborhood with Goss. No one inside either house was wounded.

Bellman was being held on $50,000 bail Friday at the Charleston County jail. He is on probation for a drug conviction, according to the Probation Parole and Pardon Services Web site.

Investigators do not think a shooting that wounded a man on Helm Avenue Thursday night was connected, Pryor said.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Martez Brown and Benjamin Goss are asked to call North Charleston Police at 554-5700 or Crime Stoppers at 554-1111. Both suspects should be considered armed and dangerous.

Check back with Charleston.net for more information later today.