An 18-year-old gunman opened fire and shot five people, including his girlfriend, at a home in northwest Atlanta on Sunday morning before killing himself, authorities said.
Atlanta police responded just after 10 a.m. to a residence in the 3500 block of Adkins Road in the Fairburn Heights neighborhood near the Fulton County Airport. When officers arrived, they found three adults and two children, ages 3 and 15, suffering from gunshot wounds, Atlanta police Deputy Chief Charles Hampton told reporters from the scene. The victims were taken to the hospital and were said to be stable.
“There was some type of ongoing dispute, domestic in nature, inside the home that escalated to gunfire,” Hampton said. “The suspect shot all five victims, then shot himself.”
A 19-year-old woman, who identified herself as the suspect’s girlfriend, called 911 and said she had been shot in the arm. The woman told dispatchers that she was pregnant.
“My boyfriend just shot me. He just shot himself. He’s dead,” she said, adding that her mother and mother’s partner had also been shot.
The two others injured were the mother’s children, according to an incident report. Two other children were also inside the home at the time, but they were uninjured and taken to a hospital.
Officers eventually entered the home and found Samuel Donta Johnson-Taylor lying on his back with an “apparent gunshot wound to the head” and a pistol near his body, according to the report. Several shell casings and the firearm used were removed from the scene and turned in as evidence.
The incident occurred amid a weekend that had already seen five people killed by gun violence.
Earlier on Sunday, 25-year-old Harrison Olvey, a valet, was fatally shot in Buckhead after he confronted someone who was breaking into a vehicle. Detectives said they were looking for a person of interest, who is believed to be armed and dangerous.
On Saturday, four others were shot and killed across the city within a 12-hour span.
At about 1:05 a.m., Atlanta police found 31-year-old Freddie Lowe shot to death near the Thomasville Recreation Center in southeast Atlanta. The suspect, Leverett Hancock, 40, was booked into the Fulton County Jail on charges of murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
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Just two hours later, officers were called to the troubled Fairburn Gordon apartments in northwest Atlanta and found a man fatally shot. He was identified as 44-year-old Theon Elliot by the county medical examiner’s office.
Later on Saturday, two separate shootings a few miles apart in northwest Atlanta left a man and a woman dead, authorities said. The man, 28-year-old Cordale Duncan, was found shot at Magnolia Park, which like Fairburn Gordon, was identified in the AJC’s “Dangerous Dwellings” investigation. Allen Pitts, 28, was identified as a suspect and arrested.
About four miles away, police responded around noon to a home in the 900 block of Margaret Place near Westside Park for a person shot call. At the scene, officers found 64-year-old Kathy Mouldr, who did not appear to be breathing, police said. She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Detectives said Winston Muhammad, 75, was charged in the case. Police said he is believed to be a “known acquaintance of the victim,” and that they were involved in an argument over eviction.
Atlanta police Chief Darin Schierbaum said the Adkins Road shooting, and much of the violence this weekend, was domestic-related. Investigations are ongoing into the gunfire.
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Channel 2 Action News
“What we see here today has commonality of what we saw in the city this weekend,” Schierbaum said. “Intimate setting among friends and family where a gun is present and anger occurs.”
“This department will continue to hold drug dealers accountable, gang members accountable, individuals that are running guns in our city,” he added. “But we cannot be present in every living room and in every setting of a home where we need others to be able to intervene to stop violence from occurring.”
— Please return to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for updates.
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