Riverdale shooting leaves one dead

A teenager was killed early Saturday in a Clayton County shooting that also left another person in critical condition.

While police have released few details about the incident, a neighbor who said he was awakened by gunfire from an automatic weapon said detectives told him that it was an apparent drive-by shooting.

The shooting happened about 4 a.m. outside a home in the 1200 block of East Fayetteville Road near the intersection of Walker Raod, just outside the Riverdale city limits.

Clayton County police spokesman Tim Owens identified the dead teen as Bufus Culver, 17, of Fayetteville.

Bernard Pitts, 24, of College Park was wounded in the shooting, and was hospitalized in critical condition.

At noon Saturday, investigators were still processing the crime scene, which Owens said covered about a three-block area.

“We’re still interviewing people, trying to figure out what role the two that were shot played in it, whether they were just victims, whether they were returning fire,” Owens said. “We don’t know who initiated it, we don’t know who all was shooting.”

No arrests had been made, Owens said.

Elmer Marshall lives on Walker Road, just behind the house where the shooting occurred.

“I heard automatic rifles fired, rat-a-tat-tat, like an AK-47, then saw a guy running through my garden,” Marshall said.

Marshall said he was interviewed by detectives, and was told that police had recovered 69 shell casings.

He said the home where the shooting happened is a rental property, and the current tenants have been living there for about a year and a half.

“I’m getting nervous,” said Marshall, who has lived in the same house for 42 years. “I don’t want to move, but I can’t dodge bullets either.”