Predawn Durham gunfight leads to arrest of wounded man

All police had at first early Friday was a homeowner who said he had exchanged gunfire with an attacker outside his house, but then a man with a gunshot wound showed up at Duke Regional Hospital and was treated and arrested.

The homeowner called officers, saying he had gone outside with his gun about 4:30 a.m. after a car pulled into his driveway in the 3900 block of Cole Mill Road, not far from Eno River State Park, and its horn was honking and its headlights flashing.

A woman, a stranger to the man, told the man a story about needing to use his phone because she had had a fight with a relative, police said.

Right after that, a man with a gun came around a corner of the house and had a gun, police were told.

Both men fired, and then the intruder was gone.

More of the story began to come together about 5 a.m., when Duke officials notified police they had a patient who had been shot.

That patient, Jerel Antonio Thompson, 26, was arrested at the hospital on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.

Detectives continued their investigation Friday, including who the woman was and how Thompson got to Duke.

This story was originally published July 29, 2016 at 12:30 PM with the headline "Predawn Durham gunfight leads to arrest of wounded man."