ROCKINGHAM — An argument between two men led to a gunfight and felony charges for them both.
According to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, 55-year-old Clemmie Lee Covington, of Pauline Drive, Rockingham, and 37-year-old Timothy Earl Ratliff exchanged gunfire next to Ratliff’s Ellen Road home following an argument late Monday morning in the Little Philadelphia community.
Deputies aren’t sure what the argument was about, but say five to six shots — both from .380-caliber semi-automatic handguns — were fired during the altercation, with Ratliff striking a 1993 Cadillac occupied by Isiah Brown.
Covington was arrested that day and charged with a felony count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. He was booked into the Richmond County Jail under a $175,000 secured bond.
Deputies arrested Ratliff the following day, charging him with a felony count of discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle and two misdemeanor counts of assault with a deadly weapon. He was given a $25,000 unsecured bond.
Covington served nearly 10 years in prison after being convicted on felony charges of possession of a Schedule II controlled substance and being a habitual felon and a misdemeanor count of use or possession of a drug paraphernalia in 2oo1, according to the N.C. Department of Public Safety Division of Adult Correction.
Prior to that, he served just more than a year in the late ’90s on three counts of selling a Schedule II controlled substance and driving while impaired after his probation was revoked.
Records show Covington also spent nine months behind bars in 1990, following his second DWI conviction. The first was in Moore County.
Covington’s most recent conviction was in 2011 — nine months after being released from prison — on a misdemeanor count of communicating threats.
State records show Ratliff was convicted in 1998 on a misdemeanor charge of driving while his license was revoked.
Reach reporter William R. Toler at 910-817-2675 and follow him on Twitter @William_r_Toler.