Atlanta police on Tuesday named a suspect in the death of a child fatally shot after Christmas shopping with her family in Buckhead.
Daquan Reed, 24, of Virginia, is wanted on charges including felony murder in the death of 7-year-old Kennedy Maxie, Atlanta police homicide investigator Lt. Pete Malecki said during a news conference Tuesday.
Police have secured arrest warrants and are working to bring Reed into custody, acting police Chief Rodney Bryant said during the news conference.
“We will continue to work diligently to bring him back into the city of Atlanta to serve out his justice,” Bryant said.
Kennedy, who lived in Cobb County and attended Sedalia Park Elementary, died the day after Christmas. She had been in critical condition at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite since the Dec. 21 shooting, officials said. She was shot in the back of the head while riding in a car with her mother and aunt near Phipps Plaza.
Investigators said the shooting stemmed from a fight between Reed and other men in a mall parking lot. When the argument ended, Reed left the parking lot in a car, “and in a senseless act of rage, discharged a firearm out that window,” Malecki said. At least three shots were fired, and one entered the car Kennedy was riding in, Malecki said. Investigators do not believe the family’s Lexus was the intended target.
“What we believe right now is we have the sole shooter who killed Kennedy,” he said.
The fatal incident is the second mall shooting that Reed has been accused in, according to reports.
“We have some information that this is not the first time this young man has been detained in our area,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said.
In October 2019, Reed and another man were arrested by U.S. marshals in Atlanta in connection with a shooting at MacArthur Center Mall in Norfolk, Virginia. That shooting stemmed from a confrontation involving a third man and left that man and a 56-year-old bystander injured.
In January, Reed pleaded guilty to a count of accessory after the fact in the Norfolk mall shooting. According to Norfolk General District Court records, he was sentenced to a year in prison with nine months suspended, meaning he spent three months behind bars from the day after his sentence was announced.
Prior to the shootings, Reed had “several cycles” in the criminal justice system, including a 2018 conviction for forgery, according to Malecki. In addition to felony murder, Reed is wanted on charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and reckless conduct in connection with Kennedy’s death.
Kennedy’s aunt told detectives she heard the gunfire while driving along Peachtree Road near Phipps. Moments later, she realized Kennedy had been struck and drove straight to the hospital, where the little girl was rushed into surgery.
“In the conversation I had with Kennedy’s mother on Christmas Eve, she couldn’t stop crying,” Bottoms said Tuesday. “She said repeatedly her baby didn’t deserve that.”
Family members told Bottoms that in their 20 years of living in Atlanta, Kennedy is the first person they’ve had to bury.
”They didn’t even know a funeral home to call,” she said.
As Kennedy lay in the hospital, family friends created a GoFundMe to help with expenses. Donations continued to pour in as news of the girl’s death spread. As of Tuesday evening, the GoFundMe had raised more than $61,000.
“This incident is heartbreaking,” one donor wrote. “My deepest sympathy for the family’s loss. A bright shining star is now in heaven.”
Kennedy’s death comes during a historically deadly year in Atlanta. The police department has investigated more than 150 homicides, the most in more than two decades, records show. This year’s victims have included 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, shot to death July 4 while riding in a car with her mother.
“We were here with Secoriea Turner’s family,” Bottoms said Tuesday. “And we’re back here again. ‘Difficult’ is not a strong enough word to describe what 2020 has been to our city and to our country.”
The surge in homicides has the community and city leaders alike demanding action.
Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore said Tuesday that although police have named a suspect in this case, more must be done to address the larger issue of public safety in Atlanta.
”In 2021, we cannot have a repeat of what’s going on this year,” she said. “And that’s going to mean addressing police accountability, but that’s also going to mean we have to support the police.”
Atlanta City Councilman Howard Shook released a blistering statement after Kennedy was shot.
“Stop minimizing our concerns by telling us that ‘crime is up everywhere,’” it read.
In response, Bottoms said mentioning violence across the nation is “not an abdication of responsibility, but an acknowledgement of the widespread severity of this issue.”
On Tuesday, Bryant said the department he’s headed in an interim capacity since June is doing everything possible to curb violence.
“We never rested,” said Bryant, who came out of retirement after former chief Erika Shields stepped aside in June following a fatal police shooting. “I want to address the narrative that the men and women of the Atlanta Police Department have in some kind of way reserved in acting. Because we continue to forge forward.”
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