They were veterans of Atlanta’s streets, known within the homeless community by their monikers.
“They didn’t bother anyone,” Brandon Milam said of Dorian “Sidewinder” Jenkins and Tommy “Can Man” Mims, who were fatally shot three days apart as they slept within three miles of each other. “They pretty much stuck to themselves.”
That, as much as anything, it appears, made them vulnerable to a killer who might be preying on Atlanta’s homeless. Channel 2 Action News reported late Thursday that MARTA police arrested a “person of interest,” so classified due to the weapon and ammunition in his possession.
“Our homicide investigators were contacted and are following up,” Atlanta police spokesman John Chafee told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
At a press conference on Wednesday, APD Homicide Detective David Quinn said the victims were shot by identical types of bullets that were last manufactured in 2010. Police believe the firearm used was either a Taurus “Judge” or a Smith & Wesson “Governor” — .45-caliber and.410-caliber revolvers.
Jenkins, who earned the nickname “Sidewinder” because he drags his foot, was found dead four days before Thanksgiving at the intersection of Courtland Street and Ralph McGill Boulevard. He was wrapped in blankets, concealing the five bullets pumped into his body at close range.
Mims — whose body was discovered Nov. 26 near a recycling center on Whitehall Street, where he would take the cans he collected — was shot seven times, a detail that investigators find particularly sinister.
"These guns have a capacity of five or six rounds. In Tommy Mims' case, someone had to reload the gun in order to get seven rounds in him," Quinn said Wednesday.
Neither investigators or the homeless community believe the men were specifically targeted. Milam, who’s been on the streets since 2008, said they steered clear of trouble and drugs.
“They were cool dudes,” Milam said. It’s unknown whether the men knew each other.
Sometimes, they’d spend the night at the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless shelter on Peachtree and Pine streets. Jenkins, in particular, had become a familiar face in recent months, said task force director Anita Beaty.
Police know little about the killer, aside from the weapon used. Two witnesses provided a similar description of an individual dressed wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt. Investigators are hopeful there may be additional witnesses, people who just haven’t come forward because they are too afraid.
“Due to the fact these murders occurred in public places, that is a possibility,” Atlanta Police Sgt. Gregory Lyon said Thursday. “We need the public’s help.”
Meanwhile, law enforcement is urging the homeless to travel in pairs and have enlisted local shelters to help spread the word.
“The men we house are really worried for their friends on the outside,” said Katie Bashor, director of the Central Night Shelter on Washington Street, across the street from the state Capitol. “There’s a segment of the homeless who just refuse to come to the shelters. Unfortunately, a lot of them are mentally ill.”
Those who have been on the street the longest — men like Jenkins and Mims — are often the toughest to reach, Beaty said.
“The less they identify as homeless, the more seriously they take it,” she said.
Jenkins, from New York, had no known family in the Atlanta area, police said. Mims has relatives in south Atlanta, Quinn said, though he usually only visits on Thanksgiving.
“I had to go there Thanksgiving Eve and make that notification,” Quinn said. “They were waiting on him to show up.”
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