Washington police ruled the death of a Greenville man Sunday night a homicide.

At 9:40 p.m., multiple calls came in to the Washington Police Department simultaneously reporting a power outage and shots fired on Wilson Street. Washington police, fire-rescue-EMS personnel and Washington Electric Utilities employees arrived at the scene and found that a car had collided with two guy-wires holding a utility pole upright, knocking the transformer loose and disrupting power to the neighborhood.

The man in the driver’s seat of the car, George Calvin Harvey Jr., 40, of Charles Smith Court, Greenville, was pronounced dead at the scene. Harvey had been shot.

According to Lt. William Chrismon with the Washington Police Department, the blackout, along with the transformer threatening to fall from the utility pole, made a less-than-ideal crime scene for police detectives. Flashlights and the headlights of vehicles responding to the scene were the sole source of illumination as they gathered evidence.

The neighborhood is not considered a high-crime area.

“It’s usually a very quiet neighborhood,” said Chrismon. “For the most part, it’s not somewhere we would suspect something like this to happen.”

Washington hasn’t had a homicide since the murder of Carolyn Csecko-Rawls by Michael Tracy Moore in 2010.

Chrismon said the department can’t comment on a motive for the homicide, but according to other law-enforcement officials, Harvey was a known entity in the area. Previous brushes with law include charges for driving with a revoked license and assault.

“We’re putting together all the pieces,” said Chrismon. “My guys were out there working until 2, 3 a.m., then were right back at it this morning. What we’re looking for is the piece of the puzzle that will help us get it all figured out.”

Chrismon said the crowd at the scene — law enforcement, emergency and utilities personnel and residents of Wilson Street — might have prevented more witnesses from stepping forward with information.

“Sometimes people are willing to tell us what’s going on when they don’t feel like someone’s watching,” he said.

The Washington Police Department asks anyone with any information about this case to call 946-1444 or Beaufort County Crime Stoppers at 974-6400.