The family friend who was driving in Atlanta when shots were fired, killing an 8-year-old girl, has filed a lawsuit against the city and the former mayor and police chief.
Omar Ivery says the “defendants did nothing to end the lawlessness” on University Avenue weeks after Rayshard Brooks was killed outside a Wendy’s restaurant. Former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and former interim police Chief Rodney Bryant, along with city councilmember Joyce Sheperd and the restaurant owner are all named in the suit, which says all of them failed to keep the area safe despite ongoing violence.
As a result, Secoriea Turner was killed and Ivery was injured, the lawsuit states.
“But for defendants’ lack of intervening to control or dismantle the nuisance of an armed barricade that obstructed the roads and the violence that surrounded it, Mr. Ivery would not have been injured and Secoriea would still have her life today,” the suit states.
Secoriea died July 4, 2020, when she was shot in the back seat of her mother’s Jeep Cherokee on University Avenue, according to police. The girl, a rising third-grader at Kipp Ways Academy, was with her mother and the family friend when they encountered a group of armed people blocking a street near the burned-out Wendy’s on University.
Protesters upset by Brooks’ death had been camped out at the restaurant for weeks. Police said a group manning a makeshift barricade opened fire on the SUV after it tried to drive around the boundary. Secoriea was struck and died from her injuries.
“During the height of public unrest, Mayor Bottoms, Interim Chief Bryant, Councilmember Sheperd and the city neglected their duty to protect the safety of the public and allowed lawlessness, vigilantism, and violence to erode and disrupt the area surrounding the Wendy’s at 125 University Avenue,” the lawsuit states.
The suit states that Ivery sustained both physical and emotional injuries in the shooting. He is requesting a jury trial and unspecified damages.
Julian Conley, then 19, was arrested and charged with murder less than two weeks after Secoriea was shot to death. An AR-15 style rifle fired at the Jeep, striking the side and back of the vehicle, according to a GBI arrest warrant. Secoriea was struck in the head by a projectile, the warrant states. Conley remained Tuesday in the Fulton County jail.
Credit: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In August 2021, Jerrion McKinney, then 23, was arrested and charged with murder, four counts of aggravated assault, pointing a gun or pistol at another, and 12 gang-related offenses. The GBI said McKinney chased the Jeep down the road as it raced to a local hospital where Secoriea would later be pronounced dead. McKinney’s case was also pending Tuesday and he remained in the Fulton jail.
Last summer, Secoriea’s family filed a civil suit in Fulton County state court. That lawsuit is still pending, court records showed.
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