Three men were shot at a northwest Atlanta shopping complex next to where a music video was being filmed Tuesday afternoon, police said.
Atlanta officers were called about shots fired in the parking lot of the Village retail center in the 2100 block of Verbena Street shortly before 5 p.m. The plaza is just north of I-20 across the street from an apartment complex in the Dixie Hills neighborhood. All three victims were described as alert.
According to an incident report obtained Thursday, witnesses told police that Quality Control Music, the Atlanta-based record label to which Lil Baby and several other rappers are signed, was filming a video at the location and “two unknown parties” in the area got into a dispute. The two groups then began exchanging gunfire, witnesses said.
Atlanta police Maj. Ralph Woolfolk told reporters at the scene that the music video was being filmed in an area adjacent to the crime scene.
“The people that were shot were not a part of the video production team, but there may have been individuals involved in the totality of the production that were involved in the incident,” he said.
Josue Olivares, a representative for Lil Baby, confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Atlanta-born rapper, whose real name is Dominique Armani Jones, was in the area at the time of the shooting but did not say if the video being shot was his. Olivares added that the “conflict did not involve Lil Baby or anyone from the production” and that the musician was “unharmed.”
Two of the victims, ages 24 and 27, were taken to a hospital by ambulance, officials said. One of them had a gunshot wound to his arm and the other to his back. The third victim arrived at the hospital in a personal vehicle with a gunshot wound to his neck.
“At this time, it appears to be an isolated and targeted incident, and some of the witness information that we’re receiving at this time corroborates that,” Woolfolk said Tuesday.
Gang unit investigators were seen in the area assisting with the investigation. No other details about the incident or any suspects were released.
In a similar incident in June 2020, gunfire erupted during a music video shoot for Atlanta rapper YFN Lucci. That incident unfolded near an apartment complex on Martin Street, about five miles from Tuesday’s scene and on the other side of the Downtown Connector. That shooting left a 15-year-old boy with an injury to his hand.
The rapper, whose legal name is Rayshawn Bennett, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a single gang charge in an unrelated case and was sentenced to 20 years, with the first 10 in custody. He’d been facing up to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his alleged role in a drive-by shooting that left one man dead.
Prosecutors have said YFN is an Atlanta-based street gang associated with the Bloods and is a rival gang to YSL, or “Young Slime Life,” also a Bloods-affiliated gang. Rapper Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, is the alleged co-founder and leader of YSL and is on trial now along with his alleged associates in a sprawling gang racketeering case, the longest trial in Georgia history.
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