Seven people were arrested Thursday after a mob brawl erupted outside a DeKalb County courtroom, authorities said.
There were no major injuries, but more arrests are expected, DeKalb Sheriff’s officials said.
"There’s a certain expectation," DeKalb Sheriff Thomas Brown told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "When people come into a public place and act like hoodlums, they’re going to find themselves arrested."
The incident started on the sixth floor around 10 a.m., sparked by a verbal altercation between two opposing groups, and quickly grew to a melee of scuffling and punches being thrown, sheriff's officials said.
"There was a mob of about 20 people, consisting of a gang called the ‘Hoe Haters' and [their] supporters and the family members of the victims,” sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Adrion Bell told the AJC.
A call was put out for help, and sheriff's deputies hurried to the scene, Brown said.
"Every available deputy that heard that message responded," he said. "They were there in 90 seconds or less, and they came with sufficient [numbers] to stop the incident with minimum force."
The fracas happened outside the courtroom where a pretrial hearing was scheduled for a suspect in the murder case of slain Southwest DeKalb High School senior Marcus Holloway, Bell said.
Antoine Willis Jr., 20, a member and alleged leader of the Hoe Haters, is charged with fatally shooting Holloway the night of Jan. 19, 2011, outside an apartment complex off Columbia Drive.
According to authorities, Holloway was in the wrong place at the wrong time during the drive-by shooting.
Along with Willis, Kyree Oshay Brantley, 19, Jaqwanta Grimes, 20, Brandon Matthew Reed, 28, and Charles Timothy Slaton, 19, were arrested and charged with felony murder. All of the suspects remain in DeKalb County jail.
Brown said nobody involved in the row stopped to do the right thing, even before blows were thrown.
"I don't know who started the confrontation, and I don't care," he said. "Whoever was the receiver of the first verbal volley could have turned and walked away or sought out an authority figure."
Five adults and two juveniles will be charged with creating a fray, a misdemeanor. More charges are pending, Bell said.
None of those arrested have been identified, Bell said.
Sheriff's deputies continue to investigate.
Please return for updates.
"When people come into a public place like that, there’s a certain expectation," DeKalb Sheriff Thomas Brown said. "When peple come into a public place and act like hoodlums, they’re gonna find themselves arrested."
When people come into a pub place like that, there’s a certain expectation
When peple come into a publ place and act like hoodlums, they’re gonna find theimself arrested
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