Crime scene tape strung up in the parking lot of a DeKalb County flea market Sunday afternoon was the only hint of the chaos that erupted just hours earlier at the nightclub next door.
Five people were injured when someone opened fire during an argument at the Bravo! 56 club as patrons filtered out at the end of the night, DeKalb police said. It was the latest incident of gun violence at the Glenwood Road venue that has seen at least seven people shot within eight months.
Officers were called to the club, formerly known as the Cosmopolitan Premier Lounge, shortly after 3 a.m. and found the five wounded outside. All of the victims were taken to a hospital, and as of Monday morning, four of them had been released, police said. One remained hospitalized but was said to be stable.
Police have not said if they have identified a shooter. Videos posted to social media show clubgoers scrambling to get outside while others took cover on the floor as several shots went off in the dimly lit venue.
“Nobody knew what to do or where to go or where the shooter was,” Tequilla Josephine told Channel 2 Action News. “If they were going to come in through the back? If they were going to come in around the side?”
Josephine said she was at the club as a podcaster to interview artists who were going to perform. Her night ended with seeing a man collapse from getting shot in his leg.
“You just see a stampede of people,” she told the news station. “I froze. I literally just stopped and froze ... I was in a state of panic. I thought about my children. I thought about my family. In that moment, you think about your life.”
For flea market shoppers like Glinnett Kelley, news of the shooting was frightening.
“It’s very sad and it’s scary,” she told Channel 2 Sunday afternoon. “You see these young kids out here on the street, and it’s nothing like it was when I was growing up.”
In October, a shooting outside the same club left 30-year-old Erik McKenzie, a security guard, dead and another guard injured. Police said the two had tried to break up a fight at the venue and were shot in a hail of bullets in the parking lot, but no other witnesses or clubgoers were injured.
Gun violence at nightclubs is an ongoing and complicated issue for community leaders. Sunday’s shooting was the third to occur within the past month at nightclubs in metro Atlanta, following shootings May 19 at Club Blaze on Moreland Avenue and May 21 at NRG ATL on Peachtree Road in Buckhead.
After a rash of seven club shootings over a two-week period in Atlanta last year, city officials discussed plans to limit the violence, speaking of a need for collaboration among police, city offices and business owners. Suspending liquor licenses and establishing private security forces were some ideas floated by officials at the time, in addition to deeming violence-prone clubs as nuisance properties in court.
“When it comes to nightclubs and alcohol-selling establishments, we must take security seriously,” Byron Amos, the District 3 councilmember over Vine City, has said about the issue. “That includes inside and outside of the business. The parking lot is an extension of your building, of the business itself.”
Anyone who was in the area of the club at the time of Sunday’s shooting or anyone who left the location prior to police arrival is asked to contact investigators at 770-724-7850.