Anterrance Dejuan Gresham was talking to his cousin when one of the bullets flying from a silver car landed in his lower back, killing him May 15.
But what officers and witnesses called a drive-by shooting was considered self-defense by a judge at a probable cause hearing last month.
Murder and aggravated assault charges were dropped for Quinton Bentford.
He walked out of the jail Tuesday, days after posting bonds of $10,000 each on unrelated charges, DeKalb County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Cynthia Williams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an email.
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He’d been in jail since Sept. 1, when he was arrested in connection with Gresham’s shooting death.
The drive-by style shooting took place at the intersection of Chupp Road and Covington Highway, The AJC previously reported.
At least seven shots were fired at Gresham and his cousin, according to police report. Gresham’s cousin was shot in the thigh, but managed to get away. He called a friend to take him to DeKalb Medical Center’s Hillandale campus.
Gresham was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he later died.
At a Sept. 22 hearing, a magistrate judge ruled there wasn’t enough probable cause to move forward with the charges, “finding that (Bentford) acted in self-defense,” DeKalb District Attorney spokeswoman Yvette Jones told The AJC in an email.
Jones said prosecutors objected to the court’s findings.
“The case is currently still open and under investigation to determine the next appropriate steps,” she said.
DeKalb police would not say if they are looking at other potential suspects, but spokesman Lt. Lonzy Robertson said: “They are still investigating.”
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