2 arrested in SE Atlanta shooting that left 1 dead, 1 injured

An Atlanta police sergeant stands inside the crime scene on Kipling Street, where one person was pronounced dead at the scene.

Credit: Ben Hendren

Credit: Ben Hendren

An Atlanta police sergeant stands inside the crime scene on Kipling Street, where one person was pronounced dead at the scene.

Two people have been arrested in connection with a shooting that left one person dead and another hospitalized Friday morning near a troubled apartment complex in southeast Atlanta, police confirmed.

Officers were called to two separate locations related to the shooting around 11 a.m. The first call sent police to a home on Kipling Street and minutes later to a gas station on McDonough Boulevard, Atlanta police spokeswoman Officer TaSheena Brown said. One person was pronounced dead at the Kipling Street location, while a second was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in a private vehicle.

Brown said the two scenes were connected but could not provide additional details.

The following day, Duwayne Johnson and Rene Ndiaye, both 26, were arrested on charges of murder and aggravated assault. Johnson faces additional charges of robbery by entering an automobile and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

The deceased victim was identified by the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office as 44-year-old Rashone Gardner.

Police did not share further details about the extent of the second victim’s injuries.

The two scenes were about a mile apart, and the gas station sits across the street from Forest Cove apartments, one of the complexes highlighted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “Dangerous Dwellings” series. The city is in the process of relocating the complex’s residents using federal grant money in the wake of the AJC’s report, which focused on unsafe and unsanitary conditions at apartment buildings around the city.

— Please return to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for updates.