The first 911 call came from an Uber driver who was scheduled to pick up someone from Barcelona Wine Bar, a popular Westside eatery on Howell Mill Road.
“Two guys in hoodies ... started yelling at people to get down,” the driver told the dispatcher. “I think they have weapons.”
The driver had no idea that she had just witnessed the start of what would be a tragic Sunday morning inside the restaurant.
Her 911 call, one of four Atlanta police released Wednesday, was one of multiple frantic pleas for help from outside and inside the restaurant.
One came from a security officer in the restaurant’s parking lot. Two more came from employees inside Barcelona Wine Bar.
“We’re closing the restaurant,” an employee said in one of the calls. “Three men come in armed with guns.”
The masked robbers tied up restaurant staff with electrical tape. Manager Chelsea Beller was forced upstairs to open a safe.
“Our boss has been shot,” the employee told the dispatcher.
A colleague could be heard yelling in another call.
“I need help,” the staffer said. “She’s still conscious, but she’s been shot in the right shoulder. She’s struggling right now.”
By then, the robbers were gone. The security officer in the parking lot said he witnessed three men carjack a Lyft driver and speed away.
“They’re in a white car,” he told a dispatcher. “They just made the dude jump out the car. He threw his hands up. They jumped in his car and left him.”
He asked for an ambulance. He said he heard someone inside the restaurant was bleeding.
Authorities arrived and took Beller to Grady Memorial Hospital, where she died of her injuries. She was 29.
Despite a reward that is more than triple the usual $2,000, no arrests have been made.
Tipsters can also remain anonymous by contacting Crime Stoppers Atlanta at 404-577-8477, texting information to 274637 or visiting crimestoppersatlanta.org.
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