After a fight, gunfire left 2 boys dead in DeKalb. A teen is now charged.

What started with a football game and accusations of bullying ended days later with a confrontation and a shooting that killed two young brothers in DeKalb County, newly released arrest warrants said.

On Sunday evening, a family was spending time in the backyard of their apartment when a group showed up looking for a fight, the boys’ grieving mother told police.

The situation escalated with items being thrown until “everyone started fighting,” and the two boys, 11-year-old Ja’marion Rolle and 12-year-old Ja’Khi Clark, were fatally shot, police wrote in a report. Two women were also injured. Police confirmed all the victims are related.

A suspect tied to the incident, 18-year-old Julian Ellis, was booked into the DeKalb jail late Tuesday and faces two counts of felony murder and four counts of aggravated assault with a weapon, online records show.

Public defender Daryl Queen was assigned to Ellis’ case Thursday. Queen told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution via email that information made public so far doesn’t give a full picture of what happened before and during the gunfire.

“Additional evidence and context remain to be examined, including the circumstances that led to the arrest of our client, 18-year-old Julian Ellis. Those facts should be established through the investigative and judicial processes — not through speculation or an incomplete public narrative,” Queen said.

The day after the arrest, DeKalb leaders came together to decry youth violence and to announce a program aimed at supporting middle and high school students.

“As elected officials, as educators and as a community, our responsibility is to respond with compassion, to respond urgently and to take action. As a community, we cannot sit in silence during unspeakable acts of violence that involve children,” county CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson told a room of reporters.

Exactly how the weekend shooting at the Nissan Golden Gate complex unfolded remains unclear, but arrest warrants and an incident report obtained by the AJC provided some details about what authorities say led up to incident. The gunfire followed an earlier conflict involving the victims’ family, the suspect and a group with the suspect, according to documents.

The parties had been playing football together days before the shooting, and a victim, whose name was redacted from records, said the “group of juveniles were bullying him,” arrest warrants state. The boys’ mother told police there was a fight Thursday between her family and other children who she said did not live at the North Hairston Road apartment complex.

The mother told police that while her family was in the backyard Sunday, a group of “juvenile females came to fight her sons,” the report details. The girls eventually left but returned some time later, and the mother told authorities she spotted a man she believed was holding a gun. A confrontation ensued involving Ellis and unnamed others before Ellis fired a gun, the warrants say.

The boys’ mother told police she heard a flurry of gunshots after she went into the home. She said she saw the man running while shooting, according to the incident report.

The shooting was captured on video, and members of Ellis’ group identified him as the person with the firearm, the warrants say.

Law enforcement wrote in the incident report that multiple shell casings were discovered in the grass, and several bullet holes were found in a wooden fence and an upstairs window.

The younger boy was found with a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to officials, and the second boy was taken to a hospital in critical condition and later died. Attempts by the AJC to reach the boys’ mother have been unsuccessful.

Authorities said Sunday evening the two injured women, ages 19 and 39, were stable at a hospital. During Wednesday’s news conference, police Chief Gregory Padrick said the older woman is actually 37.

“Two children should still be alive today. Their families, their schools and our community are grieving a loss that no family should ever experience,” Padrick said.

The shooting remains under investigation. Padrick said officers will continue following the evidence, and “if that evidence represents other people responsible, we will take the appropriate action.”

Queen, Ellis’ attorney, said the state’s Public Defender Council does not minimize the pain the shooting has caused, but he said Ellis is presumed innocent. The council is seeking videos, photographs and other recordings of the incident.

“This is a profoundly serious matter involving lives lost, people injured and families forever affected. It demands compassion for everyone who is harmed and a careful, responsible examination of all the evidence,” Queen said.

Nissan Golden Gate, previously known as Mountain Crest, is among 275 of the metro area’s persistently dangerous complexes, according to the AJC’s 2022 “Dangerous Dwellings” investigation that looked into serious crimes, lax maintenance and other hazards in metro neighborhoods.

Cochran-Johnson said county officials are “no stranger” to the complex and have engaged with parents in the community to offer support for their children.