Several cars and northeast Atlanta businesses were damaged Thursday morning when an argument in a parking lot escalated to gunfire.
Property was the only casualty when the bullets started flying on Cheshire Bridge Road near the juncture of Lenox and Lavista roads, according to Atlanta police. The incident comes on the heels of another bout of parking lot gunfire that claimed the life of 7-year-old Kennedy Maxie, who was shot in the head while riding in a car with her family near Buckhead’s Phipps Plaza.
On Thursday morning, Atlanta police were called to the Allure Gentleman’s Club about 2:40 a.m. after several rounds of shots were heard in the area. A woman inside the nightclub told Channel 2 Action News she found nearly a dozen bullet holes in the hood of her vehicle when she went out to investigate.
The shooters have not been located, police spokesman Officer Steve Avery said.
“The preliminary investigation revealed that a group of males had been in the parking lot of a nearby store when an argument started,” Avery said in a statement obtained by Channel 2. “During the argument, members of the group drew firearms and began shooting at one another.”
The front window of at least one business was also shattered by the gunfire, the news station reported. The incident remains under investigation.
Atlanta police have investigated several recent shootings at nightclubs, including a shootout Nov. 6 outside the Monaco Hookah Lounge downtown that killed Chicago rapper King Von and another man. The GBI is also looking into that incident as an officer-involved shooting.
Three days later, another shootout outside The Voo lounge on Campbellton Road in southwest Atlanta left one man dead and injured a bystander. Two other deadly shootings have been reported at nightclubs in the Old Fourth Ward and west Midtown dating to late October.
In their wake, Atlanta police have pledged to increase patrols around the clubs. Some city leaders have called for Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to shut down the businesses, citing the need to preserve city resources already stretched thin by the coronavirus pandemic.
Following Maxie’s death over the weekend, a fresh round of debate was ignited among the mayor and the city council. Felicia Moore, who heads the council, said more must be done to address the rise in crime in Atlanta.
“In 2021, we cannot have a repeat of what’s going on this year,” she said. “And that’s going to mean addressing police accountability, but that’s also going to mean we have to support the police.”
Councilman Howard Shook put the blame squarely on Bottoms for what he said was a lack of leadership.
“Stop minimizing our concerns by telling us that ‘crime is up everywhere,’” he said in a statement.
In response, Bottoms said mentioning violence across the nation is “not an abdication of responsibility, but an acknowledgement of the widespread severity of this issue.”
In all, 157 people have been killed in Atlanta this year, making 2020 the deadliest year on record in more than two decades.
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