Adrienne Rodriguez can’t believe her fate. She has now lost two of her three children to gun violence.
“Most people don’t go through it once in life,” Rodriguez told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday. “Out of all the people in the world, how the hell do I go through it twice?”
On Aug. 24, 2014, Rodriguez’s son, Nizzear, was shot in his bed just hours after celebrating his 13th birthday. On Feb. 2, her pregnant daughter was shot. Shaniyah Rodriguez, 20, died two days later. Doctors delivered Adrienne’s granddaughter the same day Shaniyah was shot. Since then, baby Millianni has been fighting for her life.
“She still hasn’t opened her eyes,” Adrienne Rodriguez said. “They don’t know if she will live because they don’t think she can breathe on her own.”
Now, she must prepare to bury her second child. Rodriguez says it’s time to end gun violence, especially when it takes the lives of young people. Her surviving son is 18 and will start college in the fall.
“When do we as a community say enough is enough?” she asked.
After her son’s death, Adrienne said she was terrified of birthdays. But there was one birthday she awaited: The birth of her first grandchild due in March.
Instead, weeks before her due date, Adrienne’s daughter was shot. It was Feb. 2: the same day Adrienne’s father celebrated a birthday.
Shaniyah was shot at the Brannon Hill condominiums in the 6600 block of Singleton Lane in DeKalb County. The notorious and derelict condo is among 272 of the metro area’s persistently dangerous complexes, according to an investigation by the AJC that looked into serious crimes, lax maintenance and other hazards in Atlanta neighborhoods.
In May 2022, three people were killed and three were wounded in a shooting at the complex. Homicides were also reported there in November 2021 and April 2017.
Shaniyah was eight months pregnant when she was shot and had been hanging out with friends, her mother said. But when she didn’t come home, her mother knew something was wrong.
“She was home every night, so the fact that she wasn’t was a shock to me,” Adrienne said.
Shaniyah and Nizzear had been less than a year apart, so close in age that many people assumed they were twins, Adrienne said.
“They called each other twins,” she said.
A straight-A student dubbed “Jimmy Neutron” for his quick math skills, he was shot during a robbery at the Carrollton townhouse where his family lived at the time.
Malik Davis was acquitted of murder and aggravated assault charges, but convicted of burglary.
“Everybody has a different theory as to why this happened,” Carroll County Assistant District Attorney Jeff Hunt told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the time. “There’s only one person that really knows and that’s the person that shot the young man.”
Adrienne said she couldn’t return to Carrollton after her son’s death. She and Shaniyah lived together in DeKalb. Adrienne had taken her daughter to her doctor appointments and her baby was healthy leading up to the shooting. The child remained in critical condition Friday at Grady Memorial Hospital.
Shaniyah never got to see her alive. DeKalb police continue to investigate the homicide, but no arrests have been made.
“My heart aches, my soul hurts, and I feel as though my world has been flipped upside down,” Adrienne wrote in a GoFundMe campaign seeking help for funeral expenses. “My newborn granddaughter will require extensive 24-hour care due to the injuries she sustained to her brain. I am humbly asking for prayers and financial assistance to ensure my granddaughter continues to receive the proper medical treatment now and in the future.”
The funeral for Shaniyah will be held Saturday in Douglasville. Adrienne said she’ll return to her granddaughter’s bedside after the service.
— Staff writer David Aaro contributed to this article.
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