After the shooting of the hairdresser, the workers were fed up
Employees of a barbershop are fed up with a series of violence in their southwest Atlanta neighborhood. In the latest incident, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Atlanta police shot and killed a man they saw brandishing a gun outside a Chick-fil-A. One of those shots hit the business.
Atlanta – Atlanta police shot and killed a man they saw firing a gun Friday night across from a Chick-fil-A in southwest Atlanta, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
A nearby barber was caught in the crossfire as bullets flew.
“Yesterday we replaced a window, and we got a bullet through our door and now we have to replace the door,” said Sabir Grant, a barber at KO Barber Shop.
He has worked as a barber on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive for the past 10 years, but says things have gotten worse lately.
“It’s never been like this,” Grant said. “There’s always been something going on in every neighborhood, but what I’m telling you is that after the gun laws changed, it seems to be much stronger.”
The last ‘severe’ incident happened just before 9pm on Friday night.
Police close off a section of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on Oct. 28, 2022 in Atlanta. (FOX 5 Atlanta)
“There was a running gun battle here on MLK. Officers exited their vehicles and encountered an individual actively discharging a weapon,” said Deputy Chief Charles Hampton J.
Investigators said officers opened fire after repeatedly ordering the man to drop the weapon. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says 35-year-old Willie Williams was killed. No officers were injured.
“At this time, it is unknown whether or not the injury was the result of the officer’s gunfire as he was actively involved in the earlier gunfight,” Hampton Jr. said.
The shooting is the latest in a series of violent incidents in the area. On Wednesday, a KFC employee was wounded by gunfire less than a quarter of a mile away. On Thursday, a man was killed about a mile away on Joseph E. Boone Boulevard.
Back at the barbershop, Grant says a lot of problems in the area are caused by people who don’t live here. He said he wants police to do more.
“We live in a situation where guns are very accessible, so I want them to be more concerned about pressing issues,” Grant said.
Grant said that although they were innocent in all of this, the escalation of violence looked bad on them.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into the officer-involved shooting. Atlanta police officers did not elaborate on what they thought happened before they arrived.
