A.M. ATL: ⚖️ ‘Party houses’ and indicted parents
Morning, y’all, and TGIF! Temps are back in the 20s this morning, with afternoon highs in the low 40s. The rest of the weekend (which is full of festive activities!) should be a tad warmer.
- Psst … want some Falcons tickets? We’re giving away two for their Dec. 22 matchup with the Giants. All you gotta do to qualify is sign up for the Sports Daily newsletter. Then send an email to tyler.estep@ajc.com and tell me something.
- Could be why you love A.M. ATL. Or why you love the Falcons despite everything they’ve done to you over the years. Heck, tell me a joke. I’ll be choosing the winner over the weekend, based on ~vibes~ and vibes alone. So make it good.
Now. The news. We’ve got more sports momentarily, plus a potential Atlanta connection in the UnitedHealthcare CEO assassination, another Georgian tapped to join the Trump administration and a quest to revive the South’s lost apples.
But first: teen tragedy and parental responsibility.
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ADULT ACCOUNTABILITY
Before 18-year-old Sophia Lekiachvili died in a car crash, DeKalb County prosecutors say she and her friends drank wine.
At one of those friends’ houses.
In full view of that friend’s parents.
Who then OK’d the teens going for a drive. And let them take the wine with them.
- “Sumanth and Anindita Rao have a long-standing, repeated pattern of allowing teenagers to drink in their home,” DA Sherry Boston said this week. “Halloween, homecoming, the last day of school — the Raos’ home was the party house.”
Boston wasn’t just venting. She was announcing criminal charges against the couple: involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct and maintaining a disorderly house.
Her decision is a bold one, but not unprecedented.
A similar Cobb County case ended in 2010 with a mother sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Then there’s this more recent example: After 14-year-old Colt Gray opened fire at Apalachee High School, ending the lives of four classmates, Barrow County prosecutors filed a litany of charges against his dad — who authorities say purchased the weapon used in the shooting.
- In a convo with my colleague Henri Hollis, former prosecutor Chuck Boring said it’s clear Boston did “a lot of homework, and investigation, and reflection” before bringing charges against the Raos.
- Getting a conviction, he said, will require proving how much the parents knew — and that any negligence on their behalf was the “proximate cause” of the crash.
Which also points to larger societal question: When something bad happens, how far do the tentacles of culpability reach?
Should bartenders be charged if an overserved customer kills someone? Gun manufacturers when their product’s used in a mass shooting?
If people in, say, Fulton County get shot and killed, should prosecutors launch an amorphous racketeering case against a famous rapper and a couple dozen other people who may or may not have anything to do with it?
Honestly, I’ve got conflicting feelings about this type of stuff. Shades of gray and all that.
But why don’t you tell me what you think?
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A CHILLING CONNECTION
According to multiple media reports, the suspect in the Manhattan killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson arrived in New York a few weeks ago — on a Greyhound bus that originated in Atlanta.
- It’s unclear if the man may have lived here or merely passed through. He hasn’t been publicly identified and remains on the lam.
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ANOTHER ONE
President-elect Donald Trump nominated former U.S. Sen. David Perdue to serve as his ambassador to China. That makes three ex-congresspeople from Georgia tapped for key roles in the administration.
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OUT-OF-STATE ABORTIONS
Spend some time with this thorough and thoughtful look at the growing number of Georgia women traveling elsewhere to get abortion care.
- “There are so many people that love and want their babies that end up in situations that require prompt care,” one such woman, Callie Beale Harper, said. “The current laws, how they’re set up, do not allow for that.”
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JUNK FEE JUSTICE
The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau started sending checks to more than 240,000 Georgians who used credit repair companies like Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com. Authorities say they charged illegal fees or otherwise gave customers the old bait-and-switch.
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DISFIGUREMENT AND DEBT
Remember Harvey “Chip” Cole, the Atlanta cosmetic surgeon accused of permanently disfiguring people like the woman above? He recently declared bankruptcy as he battles lawsuits from five former patients — and says he’s more than $13 million in debt.
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LOCAL FOCUS
» Those railroad crossing closures near the Marietta Square got postponed.
» Gwinnett officials shuttered the local animal shelter for about two weeks amid a deadly outbreak of “strep zoo.”
» The Ivy sports bar in Buckhead and West Egg Cafe on the Westside are both closing.
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READY TO RUMBLE
Well, ladies and gents, we’ve got a juicy weekend of football ahead of us.
- Which high school teams will advance to their respective state title games?
- Can UGA cement a solid playoff seed (and an SEC championship) with another win over Texas?
- Is Kirk Cousins good enough to lead the Falcons over his former team in Minnesota?
I’m rooting for the resilient bunch from Manchester High, while columnist Michael Cunningham has thoughts on the Dawgs and Dirty Birds.
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MORE TO EXPLORE
» First woman to lead Jimmy Carter’s church left the big city for a Plains life
» Advocates continue the fight for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits
» TORPY: Vincent Fort, Georgia’s dutiful voice of outrage, gets his due
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ON THIS DATE
Dec. 6, 1945
On the same front page carrying a headline about worldwide “death by rays,” the Atlanta Journal highlighted the birth of a baby boy named Atom Buster Rawlins.
Dad (who named an earlier scion “Dal Montecristo” after a comic strip character and a movie he saw) liked the way it sounded.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
AJC contributor Ben Gray captured Ray Covington, superintendent of the Georgia Mountain Research and Education Center, checking on a Terry Winter apple tree. It’s one of the many varieties of heritage apples the Blairsville-area facility is trying to revive.
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ONE MORE THING
Don’t forget to email me about those Falcons tickets!
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Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact me at tyler.estep@ajc.com.
Until next time.
About the Author
Tyler Estep hosts the AJC Win Column, Atlanta's new weekly destination for all things sports. He also shepherds the Sports Daily and Braves Report newsletters to your inbox.
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