Atlanta police investigated four separate, unrelated shootings, including one that proved deadly, in the course of about eight hours from Monday night through early Tuesday morning.
Officers were called to the fatal shooting scene on Redwine Road in the Princeton Lakes neighborhood just after 11 p.m., Atlanta police said. A security guard at the Park at Princeton Lakes apartment complex met with police and showed where he had found an unresponsive man lying in the parking lot.
The man, later identified by police as 25-year-old Latrez Williams, appeared to be suffering from a gunshot wound, police said. Atlanta Fire Rescue crews arrived and pronounced Williams dead at the scene. Homicide detectives have opened an investigation into the shooting, but no further details have been released.
Prior to the fatal shooting, officers were called to a home on Bonnybrook Drive in Atlanta’s Greenbriar neighborhood. Investigators found a 48-year-old man at the house who was conscious but suffering from a gunshot wound, police said. He was taken to the hospital and is considered stable.
According to the initial investigation, police believe he was shot at the Hills at Greenbriar apartments, a troubled complex highlighted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Dangerous Dwellings investigation. In July 2022, Atlanta announced that the complex was on its list of properties to be targeted because of chronic crime and condition problems.
The third overnight shooting took place just before 2 a.m. Tuesday when officers were called to the Westmar Student Lofts on West Marietta Street. At the scene, officers found a man who was conscious but suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
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Investigators learned that the victim and the suspected shooter were at the same social event, and the victim voluntarily handed his gun to the other man, police said. The suspected shooter was not arrested, but the investigation is ongoing. The victim was taken to the hospital and is considered stable.
The final shooting took place about eight hours after the first, police said, around 4:20 a.m. near the intersection of Santa Barbara Drive and Hamilton E. Homes Drive.
Officers were patrolling the area between the Collier Heights and Center Hill neighborhoods when they heard gunshots, police said. They canvassed the area and found a man with a gunshot wound to his leg. The officers quickly determined the man had been shot during a robbery attempt, and the victim told them the suspects were driving a white sedan.
Officers were able to locate that vehicle and tried to conduct a traffic stop, but the suspects tried to flee and crashed, police said. Two suspects ran from the wrecked car and were able to evade the officers, but a gun was recovered from the scene, authorities said. Police are continuing to investigate the circumstances around the shooting.
The spate of shootings took place less than two weeks after a deadly rampage at a Midtown medical building.
The lone suspect, 24-year-old Deion Patterson, is accused of shooting five women, killing one. He then allegedly led multiple law enforcement agencies on a manhunt for about eight hours before he was captured in Cobb County.
In an open letter to the city after the shooting, Mayor Andre Dickens said that while violent crime is trending down in Atlanta, “we need action that keeps guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.”
“It’s the guns,” Dickens said. “While we respect the rights conveyed by the 2nd Amendment, we also need more actions to protect the rights of our citizens to go about their lives — to go to a doctor’s office, a supermarket, a gas station, their school — without the threat of being gunned down.”
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