Neighbors Speak Out About Crime-Ridden Metro Apartment Complex

A metro apartment complex is becoming all too familiar to Oklahoma City Police Officers.

One of their own was attacked there Wednesday morning. Now the man who did it is behind bars.

Officer Jeff Coffey was responding to a call at the Willow Cliff apartments when he was attacked. While the suspect is in jail, neighbors are growing more concerned. This is the same apartment complex where a woman's body was found in a burned out car earlier in March.

Neighbors close to the Willow Cliff apartments, near 50^th and MacArthur, are on edge.

"Nightly, daily, there's police officers back there. There's ambulances back there. There's a lot of activity going on back there," neighbor Shawn Anderson said.

Around 5:00 a.m. Wednesday, city police were responding to a possible domestic disturbance call. That's when News 9 is told, Coffey saw a man trying to hide.

2/2/2013 Related Story: Police: Body Found Inside Burning Car In NW OKC

That man is 26-year-old Tommy Chesenah Jr. of Norman. The officer handcuffed him to question him in his patrol car, when Chesenah allegedly attacked him.

"This gentleman, it appears, maybe pushed off the car, maybe using his feet, lunged back into the officer with such force, knocking the officer down and breaking the officer's leg," OCPD Capt. Dexter Nelson said.

Police were investigating a homicide on March 3 at the same apartments, when a body was found in a burned out car. Charles Roberson has lived at Willow Cliff for about a year.

"All types of stuff [have] been going on. We get strange activity, violence. It's crazy," Roberson said.

"Yeah, it is a little unnerving," Anderson said.

It's unnerving for folks in the middle of what seems to be constant crime. As for Chesenah, he's behind bars on multiple charges, including aggravated assault and battery on a police officer.

News 9 is told Chesenah has a prior conviction for assaulting an officer in Cotton County. No one has been arrested in that homicide at Willow Cliff. That was the 11th homicide in OKC this year.