Along Central Drive in DeKalb County, many people can tell you a story about violence.
A young man figures he’s safe because he’s friendly with a gang. A woman recalls peeking out her back window to see a dead body and thanking God the victim wasn’t someone she knew. A mom fears stray bullets might find her kids next.
“I’m actually in the process of moving because it’s just awful here,”said Carla Torres, whose daughter is in high school. Some other residents didn’t want to be quoted by name, fearing for their safety.
The area around Central Drive, a busy 2.5-mile strip of commercial and residential development and home to Stone Mountain High School, has long been dogged by crime. In 2017, for instance, two Gangster Disciples members were convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole for a 2015 shooting spree that left three victims injured and three others dead. Two of the non-fatal shootings happened on Central Drive.
Now residents of Central Drive and across DeKalb are frustrated by a surge in homicides in the county. Police are puzzled, as other violent crimes are down in the county. The DeKalb County Police Department is the only of metro Atlanta’s largest agencies to experience dramatically increased homicide numbers in 2019.
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As of June 10, the department had worked 61 homicides in 2019. Four cases happened on Central Drive, a higher concentration than other areas of the country have seen. The department had worked 43 homicides countywide at the same point last year.
The Atlanta Police Department, which serves roughly as many residents as the DeKalb department, had seen 42 homicides as of June 10, up from 38 in 2018. That was the most recent date for which complete data was available from area jurisdictions.
DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond said he is deeply troubled by the spike and has been working on a variety of measures to reign in violence in the community.
He’s hopeful the worst is over since April, when the 2019 spike hit its peak. April had 20 homicides, making it DeKalb’s deadliest month in the past five years.
Police so far haven’t been able to explain what caused the surge. A gang war would be a logical explanation to consider, as such feuds have previously caused sudden bloody spates, but officials don’t believe gang activity is the cause.
“What’s so baffling,” Thurmond said, “is we’ve been unable to establish any connection. These are individual acts.”
Data provided by county officials shows 65 percent of the 2019 victims knew their attacker, a factor that no doubt has helped the homicide unit log an 87 percent rate of resolving cases. The national rate of resolving homicide cases is normally more like 65 percent.
Homicides have slowed in the past few weeks. The county is taking a “holistic approach” to curb violence, Thurmond said.
For example, the county is partnering with Grady Memorial Hospital on a program that addresses gun violence as a public health issue. It’s also working on “Connect DeKalb,” an initiative that uses security cameras around the county to help police solve and prevent crime.
Thurmond’s administration aims to hire 60 new officers this year and is pushing programs to help young people find work in hopes of thwarting criminal behavior. Officers are also holding more meetings with residents to encourage community-police cooperation.
“(Residents) are the eyes and ears of what goes on in their communities, and we need that,” Major A.T. Mears said. “When we have a good working relationship with them, that’s when you see a lot of the declines in crimes.”
But some residents worry police aren’t taking enough preventative measures.
“I haven’t seen anything change,” said Torres, the mom who’s trying to move away. She’s worried about the killings and about fights in her daughter’s school, Stone Mountain High, which is on Central Drive.
Benjamin Bell, 31, said some areas of the county have this year seemed like war zones where police are "not winning." Bell helps run the Reform DeKalb page on Facebook, where he and others have in recent weeks been complaining about the homicides and sharing stories of the victims.
A woman was shot and killed outside the county jail. Two men were found face-down with fatal gunshot wounds at a home on Central Drive. Three people were killed in 24 hours: a woman stabbed on Memorial Drive, a man shot near Redan Road, a man shot near Covington Highway.
Marlo Myrick, 51, who spends a lot of time in the Central Drive area, said she doesn’t see as much police presence as she would like to and wonders if police feel it’s hopeless to patrol such neighborhoods. Juliet Worrell, accompanying Myrick to a Caribbean diner the other day, said she thought police were doing a good job in the area, at least on her nearby street, Hambrick Road.
The women met for dinner on June 26. Later that night, DeKalb police were called to a different restaurant, a few miles away. A man placed an order at the Lawrenceville Highway Waffle House, then went outside to wait in his car. When a cook came to tell the patron his meal was ready, he discovered the man had been shot to death. It was the county's 66th homicide of the year.
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