Atlanta teen: Girlfriend’s family tortured, beat me

An Atlanta teenager told police that he was kidnapped by his girlfriend’s relatives and taken to an apartment, where he was beaten, choked and burned with a cigarette because they want him to stop seeing her, according to a police report.

Darius Aimey, 17, said he was tortured at a southwest Atlanta apartment for more than four hours, from the evening of Aug. 5 to early the next morning, according to the Atlanta police report. He suffered swelling to his left eye, jaw, knee, arm and burns to his left arm and back along with other abrasions and bruises, the report said.

The reason for the prolonged beating, according to the victim: His girlfriend’s mother doesn’t want Aimey to date her daughter and doesn’t believe he’s good enough for her.

An Atlanta police spokesman, James Polite, said he could not determine Thursday evening whether police have made any arrests in the case. The names of the suspects were withheld by police.

Aimey was walking in the 2000 block of Fairburn Road when his girlfriend’s brother, mother and the mother’s boyfriend pulled up in a silver Ford Taurus, he reported. The three grabbed him and put him into the car.

The two men dropped off the mother at her home, but before she got out, Aimey said she told the two men: “Take him somewhere and kill him.”

The men put a shirt over Aimey’s head and took him to an unidentified apartment where more men were waiting inside. They tied him to a chair and started out by beating him with a hammer and a 9mm handgun, the victim told police.

Then, Aimey recounted, seven men took turns punching the teen, landing blows to his stomach and face, the report said.

His girlfriend’s brother put a belt around his neck and choked him, and burned him on the arm and back with a cigarette, the victim reported.

“We told you to leave [the girlfriend] alone,” the mother’s boyfriend told Aimey, according to the report. “You better take this as a lesson.”

The suspects eventually dropped him off on the road where they found him. He sought treatment for his injuries at South Fulton Hospital.

When reached by phone, Aimey declined to comment on the incident.