Barney Simms could have left southwest Atlanta, but chose to stay in his modest, well-kept home on Connally Drive, an area that has some of the highest violent crime rates in the city.
Simms was shot to death Saturday afternoon, his body coming to rest under a row of six-foot hedges that separated his yard from neighbor Loumerrel Gray.
But crime had closed in around Simms even before that: he was the victim of a home-invasion robbery in July, and he helped keep members of his neighborhood association updated on a November murder that happened three doors down from his home.
And still he stayed, despite making more than $236,000 a year as an executive with the Atlanta Housing Authority before leaving that job three years ago.
Police on Thursday evening arrested 17-year-old Eric Banks in connection with Simms' death. Banks is the person with Simms in a Waffle House just hours before the shooting.
The connection between Banks and Simms is unclear, but the 70-year-old spent the majority of his life trying to lift up troubled teens, make life better for people in Atlanta's poorest neighborhoods, and provide opportunity for people who see far too little of it.
Brenda Muhammad, former chairwoman of the Atlanta Board of Education and executive director of Atlanta Victim Assistance, Inc., said Simms sometimes talked about moving away.
“But he said ‘I love my neighborhood. I love my people,’” recalled Muhammad. “He had invested so much there. It was his thing, building strong communities.”
Neighbor Gray found Simms’ body last weekend. The 87-year-old said she remembers when Simms planted the knee-high hedgerow some 20 years ago. Those hedges helped conceal Simms’ lifeless body for hours.
Gray told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she heard two gunshots about 2:30 p.m. Saturday, but didn’t see anything when she cautiously peered out her front window. So she went back to watching television. Four hours later, she noticed a red hat lying in her yard.
“I said I gotta go get his hat out of my yard,” Gray said. “So I walked closer, and I seen his gray hair. I said: `Barney, is this you?’ He didn’t say anything. Then I called him again, and said: `Barney, are you alright?’”
Gray said it appeared as through he was running toward her house, and tried to make it through a small hole between the hedges.
About 50 people turned out for a candlelight vigil earlier this week. Simms' neighbors uniformly said the slaying will make them more cautious, but won't chase them from their tree-lined streets. State Rep. Douglas Dean called on those gathered to pick up Simms community work.
“He gave his life for this community,” Dean said. “When this is all over, we must make our neighborhoods safe. He didn’t move out. He fought to make this community right, making the black, African-American community better. He didn’t run to a better neighborhood. He wanted to be right here.”
Simms had a deep faith, and was a long-time leader at Antioch Baptist Church. Atlanta Councilman Andre Dickens, who attended Antioch with Simms, called him "legendary, stabilizing force" in all he did. "People trusted Barney," he said.
And Simms trusted people. No one knows that better than Santana Hendrick, who met Simms in 2010, one month after being released from prison at age 20.
Hendrick had never held a job, but upon meeting Simms at the Andrew and Walter Young YMCA asked if he could help get him one. Simms told Hendrick to apply at six companies, then checked to make sure he did. Simms then got him a job with the city through the Workforce Development Agency, Hendrick said.
“That was the first job of my life, ‘cause I got locked up at age 14,” Hendrick said. “He was just a real caring person.”
Simms had two adopted children. His daughter, Natalie Jones, asked everyone at the vigil to pray.
“We’re still confused and shocked,” she said. “Pray for the family. Even pray for who did this. There’s no anger. I know all the accomplishments, all the boards and all he did. But his role as a dad was the most important.”
In a 1996 guest column published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Simms wrote that his community service work provided him with an extended family.
“The experiences, rituals and opportunities to serve others, especially those who are all too often counted among the least, the lost and the last, provide me with a wide umbrella of `family’ love.”
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