A shooting that left a man dead and 10 others injured in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood delivered a grim conclusion to an especially violent few days in the city.
The incident, among a dozen shootings across the city since Friday evening with 29 victims at latest count, happened around 1:30 a.m. Monday at 349 Edgewood Ave. near the intersection with Hilliard Street, officials said. When police arrived, they found a 27-year-old man lying on the ground with serious injuries. He did not survive.
It marked a particularly tumultuous weekend on Edgewood Avenue, where from early Saturday through early Monday police reported four separate shootings. Combined, those incidents wounded 16 and killed one, according to data released by Atlanta police.
“We haven’t had a weekend like this in a long time,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said at a Monday morning news conference. “We know that summer months often bring some of the most challenging times when it comes to crime and gun violence in our communities, … (and) we are doing all that we can to prevent these tragedies even before they happen.”
Credit: Ben Hendren for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Hendren for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the Sweet Auburn shooting early Monday, Atlanta police Chief Darin Schierbaum said 10 people — seven men and three women whose ages range from 18 to 29 — were rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital, where at least one of them was in surgery overnight. The others were described by police as stable.
No other information has been shared about the victims.
Despite the recent string of shootings, officials touted the city’s efforts to combat gun violence in recent years. From Jan. 1 through July 19, there has been a 32% drop in homicides and a 20% reduction in shootings compared to the same period last year, Dickens said.
“That progress is the result of intentional and strategic investments, not just in policing, but also in prevention and in care,” he added. “This work is about people. It is about the lives that are lost, the families that are shattered and the communities traumatized by violence that should have never happened in the first place.”
Even with the overall decline in violence, “a weekend like this can affect a whole city, and it should not happen,” Dickens said.
The rash of mid-summer violence injured a total of 27 people and killed two in 12 citywide shootings, Schierbaum said.
“When I look at what connected them, they played out throughout various parts of the city, but none (are) connected to the other, other than individuals had guns when they were angry,” he said. “This weekend, we saw individuals, who are angry about everyday common matters, pick up a gun and use it. It speaks to the work that needs to continue to be done.”
Motives for the shootings varied from disputes over parked cars being booted to domestic violence, the chief explained. By Monday afternoon, arrests had been made in five shootings, including a homicide on Lakewood Avenue on Friday and a triple shooting Saturday on Middleton Road.
Schierbaum said investigators are still looking into what led to the deadly Sweet Auburn incident and said the suspects include three men and a woman. He said the group approached another group huddled at the Atlanta Streetcar stop and started an exchange of gunfire.
Credit: Ben Hendren for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Hendren for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Officers recovered 34 shell casings, he said, and they are working to do ballistics tracing.
The street there is lined with businesses and eateries, and Edgewood Avenue is known for its “very vibrant nightlife scene,” as Schierbaum put it. Some of those business owners told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution they were concerned about the violence.
“It’s just really scary,” Suddarth Sunni, manager of a nearby Exxon gas station, said Monday. “When they start shooting, you don’t know where the bullet goes.”
Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari, whose district includes the shooting scene, said the violence is another example that change is needed.
“We must meet this moment with action, challenging a culture that normalizes guns as conflict resolution, laws that make weapons easier to buy than mental health care, and communities abandoned for decades where violence dominates,” she said.
Known as the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Sweet Auburn has long been known as a civil rights destination in Atlanta. In 1976, the area was named a National Historic Landmark District and the King National Historical Park includes King’s birth home, Ebenezer Baptist Church and the King Center, the final resting place for both King and his wife, Coretta Scott King.
But despite its storied history, gun violence has hit the area repeatedly.
Officers were called to investigate other nearby shootings on Edgewood that injured two people late Sunday and early Monday. At 3 a.m. Saturday, three people were shot in a separate incident at 345 Edgewood Ave., according to police.
In September, a man was killed during an argument over a stolen gun in a parking lot near Edgewood Avenue and Hilliard Street, according to police. Then in December, a man was shot and killed in the 400 block of Edgewood Avenue.
In 2020, over the Fourth of July weekend, an Auburn Avenue shooting left two dead and injured about a dozen. At the time, investigators said a large group had gathered to watch fireworks at a party when a driver began doing street racing maneuvers and struck two cars and a pedestrian. That led to gunfire in the intersection, police said.
— Staff writer Chaya Tong contributed to this article.
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