Multiple roads on the west side of Atlanta were closed for hours early Tuesday morning as a SWAT situation unfolded a few blocks from where a man was shot to death the night before during a robbery, police said.
Just hours after the shooting, Atlanta police SWAT teams swarmed a home in the area of Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard just south of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in the Ashview Heights neighborhood. Those roads, along with Washington Place and New Castle Street, were closed overnight until around 7 a.m. Booker T. Washington High School is just a couple of blocks away.
Officials told Channel 2 Action News that SWAT teams were at the home serving a search warrant in connection to the fatal shooting Monday night.
No one was taken into custody.
Credit: John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com
Credit: John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com
Police said they got a call just before 9 p.m. Monday about a person shot on Mitchell Street, which is just across from where the SWAT situation unfolded.
When officers arrived, they found the victim with gunshot wounds, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. He was later identified by police as 44-year-old Samuel Harris, also known as “JR.”
Police said Harris was targeted by a group of suspects in an armed robbery. In the course of the crime, Harris was shot and the suspects took his dog. Investigators are asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspects.
Three other shootings across the city Monday night claimed four victims, one of whom died.
First, officers were called around 6:15 p.m. to a home on Sandridge Place in the Sandlewood Estates neighborhood of southwest Atlanta for a wellness check. There, firefighters had to force entry into the home, where they found a woman dead from multiple gunshot wounds, police said. She was not publicly identified.
About 15 minutes later, police were called about a person being shot near a shopping plaza about eight miles north of Sandlewood Estates. The area is not far from the Hamilton E. Holmes MARTA station in the Harland Terrace neighborhood.
When officers arrived, they spoke with MARTA police, who told them the victim had already been taken to a hospital and that a suspect, whose name was not released, had been detained. The victim was expected to survive.
Then, about an hour after the Mitchell Street shooting, Atlanta police assisted MARTA police with a shooting at another station. In this case, a large group of young people was arguing at the Arts Center station on West Peachtree Street just before 10 p.m., officials said. An officer tried to break up the fight when gunshots rang out.
One person was struck in the ankle and another in the thigh, police said.
Those involved in the fight were then taken into custody. It was not clear how many were arrested.
Anyone with information about Harris’ shooting is asked to contact the Atlanta Police Department’s Homicide Unit at 404-546-4235. Tips can also be submitted anonymously to the Crime Stoppers Atlanta tip line at 404-577-TIPS (8477), online at www.StopCrimeAtl.org or by texting CSA and the tip to CRIMES (274637). Tipsters do not have to give their name or any identifying information to be eligible for the reward of up to $2,000.
— Please return to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for updates.
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