Three teens shot to death in two weekend incidents

Of the 10 siblings, Joshua Richards was the peacekeeper, the one who came up with jokes to ease tension.

“He was always trying to resolve things,” said Vivian Maiden, a family friend. “He had a way of making jokes and calming down situations.”

Richards, a 17-year-old senior at Riverdale High School, was shot to death early Sunday in the parking lot of a Jonesboro nightclub — one of three teenagers killed in shootings over the weekend in Atlanta.

“It’s tragic,” Maiden said. “It’s difficult. The children are all just distraught. Mom and Dad are all just distraught.”

Richards played shortstop on Riverdale’s varsity baseball team and hoped of earning an athletic scholarship to play in college, Maiden said.

Early Sunday morning, he and a group of friends went to a movie before stopping by a south Atlanta nightclub, Southside 17, on Jonesboro Road, Maiden said.

Inside, another group of young men tried to start a fight with them, so Richards and his friends tried to leave, Maiden said. But the other group followed them outside, and someone fired shots into the Jeep that Richards and his friends were in, Maiden said. Richards, who was sitting in the back seat, died; two others were wounded.

Also on Sunday morning, Blanca Badillo, 17, and Policarpo Luviano, 18, died after being shot in a vehicle traveling south on I-85 near Buford Highway.

Atlanta police spokesman Eric Schwartz said that about 3 a.m someone opened fire from a vehicle that drove up beside two vehicles traveling together on I-85. The gunman killed Badillo and Luviano in one vehicle and wounded a third person in the other vehicle. That person was hospitalized in stable condition, Schwartz said.

On Monday, a crisis intervention team was sent to Riverdale to counsel Richards’ friends and any other students or staff members who needed it, said Charles White, a spokesman for Clayton County Schools.

Richards was the second Riverdale student to be killed by gunfire in two weeks.

Dana Varner, 16, was standing with friends outside a house in the 7300 block of Caribou Trail on Oct. 25 when killed in an apparent drive-by shooting, according to Clayton County police.

— Staff writer Mike Morris contributed to this article.