Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms says bullets fired into a family member’s home missed her nephew by inches.
Bottoms posted about the incident on social media and warned others about the dangers of gunfire.
“What goes up must come down,” Bottoms posted. “Someone fired a gun in the air, likely miles away, and it came thru the house into my nephew’s room. He was in the bed inches away. We are grateful that God protected him. If you have a gun, please act responsibly. This could be you or your child.”
The home where the incident happened is in Griffin, Bottoms told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She posted pictures that appeared to show bullet holes in the back of a two-story home and also through a bedroom wall.
The shooting comes less than two months after an 11-year-old Spalding County girl was killed by a stray bullet while in her bed. Asijah Love Jones died around 1 a.m. March 14. Kionta Jahaun Parks was arrested a month later.
The former mayor’s family has been victimized by gun violence in the past.
In 2014, 18-year-old college student Darius Bottoms was mistaken for a gang member while driving late at night near Morehouse College, according to investigators. He was the nephew of then-councilwoman Bottoms, who would go on to win the city’s mayoral race three years later.
The three people responsible — Rashad Barber, Ryan Bowdery and David Dajunta Wallace — were eventually convicted of murder and gang charges and sentenced to life in prison. An earlier trial ended in a mistrial after it was suggested one of the jurors spoke with a police detective about ballistics evidence during court proceedings, the AJC reported at the time.
The case was recently featured on the Oxygen true crime series “The Real Murders Of Atlanta,” which highlights some of the city’s highest-profile murder cases.
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