Conyers police are cracking down on commercial house parties, like the one last Saturday that left one teen dead and two injured, and sending a message of zero tolerance for unregulated bootleg gatherings.

At a meeting of the Travers Creek Home Owner’s Association Tuesday night, Conyers Police Department Chief Gene Wilson described what police found at the 1228 Tree Leaf Lane location where the fatal party was held.

The 21-year-old occupant, Jeavoye Jones, was reportedly holding parties for teens and charging a $3 admission for each person. Jones had moved all the furniture out of the first floor and left nothing but large speakers. Although Jones was reportedly not selling alcohol, guests were bringing alcohol and reportedly selling it to minors. Police also found drug paraphernalia in the house.

Jones had hired private security guards, but one of those “guards” was a high school senior armed with a shotgun.

Jones’s mother reportedly owns the house but had moved out of state. Some of the parties were reportedly to raise money for the mortgage.

Police had been called out to the house on multiple occasions.

In the past month, police had been called out to the house at least three times for noise. On the night of the fatal party, police had been called out to the house at 9:30 p.m. and had reportedly shut down the party. However, attendees had reportedly posted a message on Facebook and the party had reassembled at the house after police left.

Police had also shut down another large house party with fights that same night on Eastview Road that had also swelled to 300 people at one point. The party host there was reportedly charging $5 a person.

At the Travers Creek HOA meeting, Wilson outlined the changes the department was putting in place to address these gatherings.

Those changes include shifting more personnel to weekends and evenings and having the department’s marshal, who can cite and arrest for zoning and ordinance violations, also work on the weekends and evenings.

Previously, attendees would flee when patrol officers arrived and the officers would refer zoning violations to the marshal to handle during weekday hours...

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