A 2-year-old girl will likely never walk again after a hail of bullets rained down on her family as they left her grandmother’s DeKalb County home late one night last month.
The little girl clung to her mother while up to 100 bullets swarmed them as they stood in the parking lot of the Arborside Apartments on Maypop Lane shortly before midnight June 20. One of them pierced her back, fracturing her spine and causing multiple internal injuries that have left the toddler with several health concerns, including the inability to urinate on her own, her mother Neziah Flood wrote in a GoFundMe campaign.
“She has a long recovery ahead and anything helps, even just prayers,” Flood said of her daughter, Harmonie, who was recently released from the ICU, the family’s attorneys told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The brazen shooting also left two men injured, one of whom was the child’s uncle who was walking the family to their car that night. He was shot in the foot, while the other man was critically hurt.
It’s not clear who the intended target was, as police have not provided an update on the case or victims.
Adding to the recent disturbing trend of children being hospitalized for firearm-related injuries, Harmonie had to have emergency surgery to save her life and remove the bullet that was lodged in her abdomen, her grandmother told the AJC at the time. She is paralyzed from the waist down.
“It was protruding through the stomach. It didn’t break the skin,” the woman said hours after the shooting. She asked not to be identified for her safety.
Across the country, the number of children under the age of 18 hospitalized for gun-related injuries jumped by more than 50% in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The previous four years saw an estimated average of 7,300 children who needed medical attention compared to more than 11,000 in 2020. The number of children killed by gunfire has also increased by 50% in recent years, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
Following Harmonie’s multiple surgeries, doctors told the family that the prognosis for her ability to ever get around on her own is grim. But, Flood said, “That’s up to the man upstairs.”
While DeKalb police have not said if any suspects have been identified, attorneys representing the child’s mother said they are investigating if legal action can be taken against the apartment complex.
The management company had allegedly been warned of numerous safety problems but failed to provide adequate security, they said. Attorneys on Wednesday declined to specify those concerns but said they related to ongoing crime in and around the complex.
Credit: John Spink
Credit: John Spink
“Senseless acts of violence like this one are made even more tragic when young children like Ms. Flood’s daughter are catastrophically injured,” the attorneys said in a statement. “While both Ms. Flood and her daughter are lucky to be alive, their lives have been forever changed by the trauma of this completely preventable incident ... we will work to identify all the parties responsible for allowing this tragedy to occur and hold them accountable.”
Strategic Management Partners, which owns Arborside, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the DeKalb County Police Department’s homicide and assault unit at 770-724-7850. “No detail is too small,” the department said.
About the Author
