The suspect in Tuesday’s shooting spree that started at the Historic Fourth Ward Skatepark told police he was on drugs and couldn’t tell what was real when he fired on two people, including a 15-year-old, and several vehicles.
Brandon Carlos Quintero, 23, told investigators during an interview he was so high on ecstasy that he “could not differentiate reality to hallucination,” according to court records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. After opening fire at the skate park, he made his way to Moreland Avenue, where he crashed into multiple vehicles and fired more shots before running away, police said in an arrest warrant.
The two people shot were not seriously injured.
Police said Quintero arrived at the skate park in a silver SUV around 3:30 p.m. and eventually walked toward the skaters, where he encountered the 15-year-old. The boy said he was walking to a restroom and the shots came out of nowhere, hitting him in the left leg and arm, according to the warrant.
Quintero then got back into his SUV, left the park around 4:43 p.m. and ended up on Moreland Avenue, where he was involved in a series of crashes, the warrant states. A 50-year-old man said he was shot in the ankle when he tried to get around the wrecks at the intersection of Moreland and North avenues, near Freedom Park.
Other drivers reported seeing Quintero drive erratically before crashing, opening fire and running away, investigators noted in the warrant. Several vehicles were damaged, either by the collisions or by gunfire, and at least one had shattered rear windows. Another person told police bullets went through the window of her Moreland Avenue home and into her closet door.
By 5 p.m., Quintero was arrested. Officers spotted him running into a building in the 200 block of Moreland Avenue and confronted him when he ran out the back, according to the warrant. Police said they recovered two firearms from the building.
Quintero is being held at the Fulton County Jail on seven counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
The shooting didn’t cause a major disruption at the skate park, located near Atlanta’s Beltline Eastside Trail, as residents quickly began to enjoy the park again even as crime scene tape remained strung up into the late afternoon.
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