Two families are grieving after a fight among teenagers in a northwest Atlanta neighborhood Sunday night resulted in the death of a new mother.
Ta'Lela Fontia Stevenson, 19, died at Grady Memorial Hospital after being stabbed in the neck. A 14-year-old girl, identified by police as Jashaunte Marshall, was arrested on a murder charge in her death.
Another teen, 18-year-old Garry Banks, was stabbed in the arm but was stable when he was taken to Grady, Atlanta police said.
“It’s wrong and it’s cruel, and it wasn’t worth it,” Stevenson’s mother, Alfonza Simmons, told Channel 2 Action News. “It wasn’t.”
Simmons said she watched from her home on Venus Place as the fight grew in the driveway. It started when Stevenson and her siblings came to the defense of their 14-year-old sister, who was being bullied, she said.
Police were called about 7 p.m., according to police spokesman Investigator James White.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that there was a large fight in the driveway at the location, and a female suspect stabbed the victims and immediately fled,” White said in a statement. “Witnesses also indicated there had been an ongoing dispute between the parties over the last couple of weeks.”
Stevenson leaves behind a weeks-old baby girl, Riley.
“She was just a bright young lady looking to get ready to make a future for herself,” an emotional Simmons said of her daughter. “She had just graduated last May. She was only out of high school a year.”
Marshall was identified as the suspect and located in northwest Atlanta a few hours after the stabbing. She was being held Tuesday in a Fulton County youth detention center and will face a felony murder charge as an adult, according to police.
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