Ask his friends, and Wali Clanton was not the type of person to get in trouble.
That’s what made the 19-year-old’s shooting death at a crowded Fayette County pool party all the more tragic.
“He was kind, he was a pure person, and made everybody laugh,” friend and schoolmate Nani Buchanan said Sunday. “He wasn’t mean to anybody. Nobody disliked him ever.”
Clanton, a 2014 graduate of and former football player at Hampton’s Dutchtown High School, was one of five teens shot late Saturday at the party on the 600 block of Ga. 279 in Fayetteville. Fayette County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Allen Stevens told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that deputies responded to the home — where 200 teens had gathered for a pool party advertised on social media — at about 11:50 p.m. Saturday.
A fight had broken out and shots were fired after the homeowner accused someone of spiking his daughter’s drink, Antonio Gibson, a security guard at the party, told Channel 2 Action News.
Four of the teens shot in the melee were taken to Atlanta-area hospitals with non-life threatening injuries, Stevens said. Clanton, who was shot in the chest, was pronounced dead at Piedmont Fayette Hospital.
#RIPWali was trending on Twitter in Atlanta on Sunday afternoon.
“Sad news in Bulldog nation,” tweeted @DHSDutch, the twitter account for his former school’s football team.
As of Sunday afternoon, authorities had not publicly identified any suspects, and weren’t sure if more than one shooter may be involved.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office at 770-716-4715.
“(Clanton) has never been a bad person,” Buchanan said. “He always did things the right way.”
