CANTON — A Cherokee County jury convicted a Canton man on all 10 counts he faced and a judge sentenced him to life in prison plus 10 years for a shooting and robbery that left a victim hospitalized for about a month.
What happened: Just after 4 a.m. on June 26, 2025, Canton police responded to River Ridge Apartments and found a man with a gunshot wound to his stomach. The victim told police he had invited 27-year-old Prince Hawar Rolle to his apartment after the two communicated on a dating app earlier that night.
According to the district attorney’s office, Rolle and an unidentified accomplice entered the apartment. The accomplice held the victim at gunpoint while Rolle searched the bedroom and stole cash and a loaded Smith & Wesson handgun. Rolle then used the stolen gun to shoot the victim. As Rolle left, he fired another round at the victim and his roommate, who had been woken up by the gunfire.
The victim was taken to Kennestone Hospital, where he had multiple surgeries. He was hospitalized for about a month.
How police found him: Neither the victim nor his roommate could identify the suspects by name or description. Police turned to digital evidence. A detective reviewing Rolle’s dating app account found a photo that connected him to a Chrysler PT Cruiser caught on a license plate reader camera near the apartment complex around the time of the shooting. The plate was traced to Rolle’s Canton address, and his driver’s license photo matched the dating app images.
Search warrants for Rolle’s two cell phones turned up additional evidence, including cell tower data placing him near the apartment at the time of the shooting and messages between Rolle and the victim. Investigators also found messages Rolle sent to another person saying he planned to make a “couple thousand” that night. Two days after the shooting, he told that same person he had stolen a gun and money and that someone had been shot, according to the district attorney’s office.
The trial: The two-day trial included nine witnesses and 66 pieces of evidence, including dating app images, apartment photos, text messages, license plate reader data, cell phone location records, cell tower records, surveillance footage, and Ring camera video. The jury deliberated for about three hours before returning a guilty verdict on all 10 counts on June 17.
Rolle was convicted of criminal attempt to commit murder, armed robbery, three counts of aggravated assault, false imprisonment, aggravated battery, criminal damage to property in the first degree, and two counts of possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony.
The sentence: Superior Court Judge Tony Baker sentenced Rolle to the maximum allowed under Georgia law: life in prison plus an additional 10 years. Under state law, a life sentence means Rolle must serve 30 years before he can be considered for parole. Judge Baker also ordered Rolle to pay $213,738 in restitution to cover the victim’s medical expenses.
The prosecution had asked for life plus 10 years. The defense had asked for 20 years with 10 years to serve.
“Technology often plays an integral role in modern day prosecutions such as this one,” Cherokee County District Attorney Susan K. Treadaway said. “Without the FLOCK camera evidence utilized by the detective in this case, a dangerous man would still be free to terrorize our community, and this victim would never have received the justice that this sentence provides.”
Second suspect still unknown: The accomplice who held the victim at gunpoint has not been identified. Anyone with information is asked to call Canton police at (770) 720-4883.
Back in the day, adulthood meant civility. Responsibility. Probably owning a sensible pair of loafers. But lately, it feels like a critical mass of humanity has collectively decided, ‘What if, instead, we didn’t?’
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B.T. Clark is an award-winning journalist and the Publisher of The Georgia Sun. He has 25 years of experience in journalism and served as Managing Editor of Neighbor Newspapers in metro Atlanta for 15 years and Digital Director at Times-Journal Inc. for 8 years. His work has appeared in several newspapers throughout the state including Neighbor Newspapers, The Cherokee Tribune and The Marietta Daily Journal. He is a Georgia native and a fifth-generation Georgian.
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