Boy slain in attack near Turner Field was just 16

Shot once in the head Sunday evening, the 16-year-old Carver High School sophomore almost made it home.

He and his 15-year-old half-brother and another friend, 16, had walked across the street to buy some snacks when they were confronted by armed gang members. The three youths scrambled but couldn’t escape the torrent of bullets.

Nick, whose last name is being withheld, was lying roughly 10 feet from his back door when paramedics arrived at his southwest Atlanta apartment. He died Monday night at Grady Memorial Hospital. His half-brother, Andre, remains in critical condition at Grady, though friends and family say he is expected to recover. They’ve asked that the two teenagers’ surnames not be published for fear of retribution.

The third youth, shot in the ankle, is in serious condition at Atlanta Medical Center.

Atlanta police are looking for as many as eight suspects who fled the scene in a white Ford Crown Victoria and a black Saturn after the attack, which took place near Hank Aaron Drive and Haygood Avenue in Peoplestown.

The shootings were most likely gang-related, said Atlanta Police spokesman James Polite. The assailants are believed to be from a different part of the city.

“We’re sick and tired of this,” said Chunda Lewis, 32, a cousin of the victim’s mother. “It used to be people in the neighborhood were fighting each other, but now you’ve got people from other neighborhoods coming in here and killing our children.”

While the attackers were allegedly gang members, the three victims were not, friends and family say.

“He [Nick] was a nice kid, kind of a twinkle in his eye,” said the Rev. Claiborne Jones, director and vicar of Emmaus House, an outreach of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. Aside from some truancy problems, Nick was never in any serious trouble, Jones said.

Her office is across the street from where the shootings occurred. The Boynton Village Apartments, where the dead teenager lived, has had three shootings in as many years, Jones said.

“I think people are terrified by this,” she said. “This isn’t drugs or property crime. This is cold-blooded murder targeting innocent children.”

Jones knows Andre, Nick’s half-brother, especially well.

“He’s never been in any trouble his entire life,” she said. “He is smart, loving, bright, funny, a great athlete … just an exemplary kid.”

Though the siblings didn’t live together, they were close friends, Jones said. Both were on spring break from Carver High School.