Ga. Tech shooting victim stable; police say GSU attack related

By MIKE MORRIS and MEGAN MATTEUCCI

The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Georgia Tech student shot in a carjacking remained in stable condition Thursday morning, a Grady Memorial Hospital spokeswoman said. Patrick Whaley, 22, was upgraded from critical condition on Wednesday.

Police now believe Whaley's attack is connected to a shooting and kidnapping that injured a Georgia State University student about 24 hours prior.

"There is a strong possibility that they are related," Atlanta Police spokesman Officer Otis Redmond said Wednesday afternoon.

Detectives are still investigating the two attacks, but said both attacks involved three black males attacking students in off-campus apartment complex parking garages. The two attacks occurred about a half a mile apart from each other.

Whaley said he thought the suspects were joking when they jumped out with guns, according to a police report released Wednesday.

Whaley was getting in his car in the parking garage at the Tivoli Tenside Apartments at 1000 Northside Drive around 11 p.m. Monday when two men jumped out with guns.

The suspects were rummaging through Whaley's pockets when a couple walked out of the elevator and interrupted the robbery, he told police.

The suspects then forced the couple to the ground and took their several credits cards, $280 in cash, cell phones and their car keys, according to a police report.

They then tried to force Whaley into a van, police said. He was climbing into the van when another suspect approached and fired a shot. The bullet entered Whaley's chest and went out his back, the report states.

As Whaley fell to the ground, two of the suspects fled in the couple's Audi. A third suspect left in their gold van, police said.

A Georgia Tech officer, unaware of the shooting, tried to stop the Audi as it ran a stop light. Before he could catch them, the Audi struck a parked a car and the suspects climbed out - leaving the car still in drive, the report states.

Police searched the area, but were unable to locate the suspects. They requested help from the police helicopter, but the air patrol was on furlough and could not work, according to the report.

About 22 hours before that, Georgia State student Carsten Singh, 22, was attacked.

He was visiting his girlfriend at her apartment on 16th Street near Nothside Drive when he was approached by three armed men, he said.

The men forced the senior economics and classical languages student into a van at gunpoint, and drove him around Atlanta for about 45 minutes, he said.

At one point, Singh said, one of the suspects took his ATM card, demanded his personal identification number and was dropped off by the other two men at an ATM.

After that suspect called his accomplices and told them that the PIN had worked with the card, Singh was driven to a deserted dead-end street in the West End area.

"They told me to get out and to take two steps forward," Singh said. "I pleaded with them not to kill me through tears."

He said one of the kidnappers then shot him in the leg, and the two men drove off.

"I got up and ran a good 75 meters down the road before I got to the first houses," Singh said.

"I knocked on at least 10 doors, and no one would open the door," he said. "I started screaming at the top of my lungs, 'help.'"

Singh said a security guard at a nearby school heard his screams and called 911.

The wounded student was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where doctors "told me I had the luckiest wound they could imagine. [The bullet] went in and out, and didn't hit the bone."

Singh said the only description he has of his kidnappers is three black men in their 20s. "They had me cover up my eyes with both hands while we were in the van," he said.

The suspects in the Georgia Tech attack are also described as three black males in their 20s. One had a light complexion, was about 5'10" and was wearing a baby blue long-sleeve V-neck shirt and khaki pants.

Another had a light to medium complexion, was about 5'11" and was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with a skull on it. No description was available for the third suspect.