Whitney Lash, fresh from a week at the beach, was putting her 6-month-old daughter to bed early Sunday evening when she heard a clamor outside the front door of the family’s west Midtown Atlanta home.
Two teens had approached her husband, Michael Lash, on the front porch. He later recalled seeing two other teens watching from across the street. Within moments, they would be stepping over his wounded body and into the house, trailed by at least eight other teens who emerged from a wooded area nearby, Lash later told his wife.
Police told the family they believe the suspects had been casing the house while they were away, Whitney Lash’s mother, Jessica Huffman, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
They knew Michael Lash, 33, was not alone, demanding entrance into the home to “see his wife and children,” Whitney Lash said.
He refused. After a brief scuffle, one of the teens — whom the Lashes estimate to be no older than 14 or 15 — produced a .40 caliber pistol and fired two bullets into his legs. One bullet entered through the front of his thigh and exited out the back.
Atlanta police spokesman Ralph Woolfolk said Tuesday investigators have gathered bullet fragments and two slugs that have been sent to the GBI Crime Lab for analysis.
As the suspects entered the house, Whitney Lash took off running, her daughter Lucy cradled in her arms. The Lash’s 2-year-old son Everson was in bed.
Darting out the back door, she called 911. One of the teens chased her, firing his gun twice. She dodged the bullets but couldn’t out run the young suspect, Huffman said.
Face to face with the young teen, Lash, 29, pleaded for mercy.
“Please don’t hurt my baby,” she said, according to her mother. The young suspect grabbed her phone, and Lash ran to a neighbor’s home.
Officers arrived within three minutes but the suspects were gone. Police say they are looking for four suspects; APD spokeswoman Kim Jones said, “We do not have anything to support (12-to-15) people were involved in this incident.”
Whatever their numbers, the suspects’ motive doesn’t appear to robbery. They took the couple’s I-Phones but nothing else, Huffman said.
Michael Lash even offered to give them his car and credit cards, according to his mother-in-law.
Police aren’t saying much about the suspects publicly, but Huffman said the family was told it may have been a gang initiation.
Atlanta police recently told The AJC they are now tracking approximately 120 gangs, more than double the number they had identified just six years ago. How much of Atlanta's crime is gang-related is impossible to calculate, police say.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, speaking at a forum on street crime, noted that, in 2004, only four defendants were charged by his office with “participation in criminal street gang activity.” In 2014, 89 defendants were so charged. Howard said 17 percent of all homicides prosecuted in Fulton last year were gang-related.
Residential burglaries are actually down in Zone 2, where the Lashes reside, police say. Through August 15 of this year, there have been 39 burglaries, down from 51 during the same time period in 2014, said Zone 2 Commander Major Van Hobbs.
Meanwhile, Michael Lash remains hospitalized and, according to his mother-in-law, still has no feeling in his feet. His bleeding was so profuse that one of the responding officers officer used his fingers to temporarily plug Lash’s wounds.
“They still don’t know if he’ll have permanent nerve damage,” Huffman said.
Because he had yet to start his new job, and had left his old job a week before, Lash was uninsured at the time of the shooting. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the couple cover medical expenses.
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