Local News

Man fatally shot west of downtown Atlanta

By Ty Tagami
Dec 2, 2010

A man is dead and his brother is being questioned after a killer opened fire on them with an assault rifle on a street west of downtown Atlanta on Wednesday evening.

Wayne Wright was shot several times near the house where he lived in the 200 block of Griffin Street, said Major Keith Meadows of the Atlanta Police Department.

He was in front of the home around 7 p.m. when a man approached on foot and opened fire with "what we believe to be an assault rifle," Meadows said.

Wright, who was in his 30s, was killed. His brother fled in a vehicle, and the shooter fired several shots at him, missing him.

"We haven't determined a motive for the shooting," Meadows said, adding that police were interviewing the brother in hopes of finding one.

Wright's mother, Barbara Banks, told Channel 2 Action News that her son had three children, the youngest nine months old.

"Wayne is my baby...he's my baby boy," Banks told told Channel 2. "I went out the door and said, ‘Lord, no. Please no.'"

About the Author

Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.

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