Morningside Homeowner, Son Speak Out After Gunfire ‘Attack’

The family that lives in the Morningside home that police said was hit with said reports of a “Facebook feud” that caused the gunfire are absurd.

“That’s ridiculous,” Nicholas Garey, who lives in the house on Greenland Drive, told reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Police were called to the Morningside home around 1 p.m. Wednesday after receiving calls about an explosion and possibly explosives thrown at a house.

The SWAT team and bomb squad failed to find explosives at the house, but investigators found a bb gun in the back of the house where the shots were fired.

Police Sgt. Curtis Davenport said a "high power rifle" was fired "multiple times" into the back of the house, and no one was injured in the shooting.

Nicholas Garey’s father, who wanted to remain nameless, said he “heard some loud bangs out back” and went to the front of the house to “see if a tree fell or something.”

“All of the sudden I heard something that sounded like firecrackers, and I didn’t know if it was inside or outside until I saw stuff flying around in my back bedroom,” he said. “I grabbed the dog and hit the floor.”

The homeowner was the only person home at the time of the gunfire.

The damage to the back of the house is unknown, although police said windows were broken amidst the gunfire.

Neighbors said the gunshots sounded like explosions, and most brushed it off as construction noise.

“It’s sort of, you know, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, and then 30 seconds later did it again,” neighbor Tony Larkin said.

30-year-old Christopher Lloyd with aggravated assault for allegedly firing shots into the Garey home.

Lloyd and Nicholas Garey have known each since they were in preschool, Garey said, but their friendship has become strained over the past year.

Garey said the family has taken out temporary restraining orders against Lloyd in the past, and the reported “feud” was one-sided.

Lloyd was detained during a traffic stop on Amsterdam Avenue and N. Highland Avenue in Virginia-Highland late Wednesday afternoon after a manhunt that involved the K-9 unit and SWAT team.

Before Lloyd was found, police searched within a five-block radius for a man neighbors saw fleeing the scene wearing camouflage. Lloyd was not wearing camouflage when he was detained, and police believe he changed his clothes before getting into his car.

, and were all on lockdown during the manhunt, which ended around 4 p.m.

After police detained Lloyd, investigators learned that he dropped a backpack in the woods behind the Garey house and the bomb squad returned to Greenland Avenue to investigate.

The bomb squad detonated two devices between 5 and 6 p.m., but no explosives were found.