A man was arrested Thursday after an alleged drug deal at a troubled southwest Atlanta apartment complex escalated into a fatal shooting, an arrest warrant shows.
Michael Stephens, 19, is facing charges of murder and aggravated assault in the Jan. 9 shooting at The Hills at Greenbriar apartments. He is accused in the death of Jahnari Smith, who claimed to be a member of the “Young Slime Life” criminal street gang, according to the warrant.
When officers responded to the complex at 2909 Campbellton Road around 5:45 a.m., they said they found the 19-year-old victim sitting in the driver’s seat of a black Nissan Altima that had crashed into a building. Smith had been shot and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Surveillance footage from the complex showed five people waiting in the parking lot near a building prior to Smith’s arrival, officials said. When the victim arrived, two of the people hid behind parked cars while three continued to wait in plain sight.
The footage then shows the victim driving into the parking area and turning around before three people walk to the driver’s side of the Nissan and open fire, the warrant states.
The car then raced forward, hitting a parked car and slamming into an apartment building. All five of the suspects could be seen running into the breezeway of a building and a person appears to exit the passenger side of the Nissan, according to the warrant.
The passenger, who identified herself to police as “an acquaintance of the victim,” was able to provide police with details as to why Smith was at the complex, but was not able to give a clear description of the suspects. She told police that Smith had asked her to hang out and if she would go with him to sell marijuana to someone.
“The witness said that during the ride to meet the customer, Smith lamented that he was nervous about the transaction, adding that he was ‘Slime’ and that his customer was a member of another gang, the name of which the witness could not recall,” the warrant details.
Credit: John Spink
Credit: John Spink
While driving to meet the customer, Smith used the witness’ phone to contact the customer, who used an email that police said they later linked to Stephens.
Officers were able to determine that Stephens was “well known” to security at The Hills at Greenbriar and was a suspect in several incidents at the complex, according to the warrant. Stephens also lived at the apartment complex with his mother, officials said.
Smith told the witness that he had met Stephens in June while in the Fulton County Jail and had gotten along with him, the warrant adds. Smith was in jail on charges of participating in a criminal street gang, possession of marijuana and possession of a weapon during the commission of certain felonies, while Stephens was facing charges of aggravated assault, battery and possession of a weapon during the commission of certain felonies.
Smith is not one of the defendants named in the Fulton indictment against “Young Slime Life,” or YSL. Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, is accused of being the co-founder and leader of YSL, which prosecutors say is a criminal street gang based in south Atlanta. The Grammy Award-winning musician is standing trial along with five alleged accomplices. His attorneys deny the charges and say YSL, or “Young Stoner Life,” is the name of the star’s record label.
The Hills at Greenbriar is among 275 of the metro area’s persistently dangerous complexes, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “Dangerous Dwellings” investigation. Since 2017, seven other people have been killed there, including a 6-month old boy in August, the AJC reported.
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