Atlanta police officers shot and killed a woman they said was stabbing her 4-year-old daughter Monday in the Carver Hills neighborhood in northwest Atlanta.
Confronted by police, Carulus Hines, 40, refused to put down a knife and was shot in the Abner Place home, said Maj. Keith Meadows with Atlanta police. The girl, Nalecia Hines, also died, but it was not immediately known if the child died from stab wounds or was accidentally shot, police said.
On Tuesday a man who answered a phone registered to her brother James Calvin Farmer II, who lived with Hines, said the family is processing the events of the day and that more information will "come out in the wash."
Police were called after Hines' 8-year-old son and her adult brother went to a neighbor’s home for help. The boy, who told neighbors his mother choked him and threw him out a window, was in stable condition with what are believed to be minor injuries Monday afternoon, police said.
Neighbor Joe Daniel said the boy and his uncle knocked on the door to use the phone. They told Daniel the boy’s mother had locked them out and “she was acting up.”
Atlanta police officers and firefighters were dispatched to the home and expected to be assisting an injured child, Meadows said. Instead, they were met with neighbors who said they believed another child was still inside the home withHines, police said.
When officers forced their way into home, they found the woman seated in a chair and stabbing the child, according to Carlos Campos, police spokesman. Hines was ordered to drop the weapon, but did not, so officers fired several shots at the woman, police said.
Meadows said between 10 and 16 shots were fired.
Lela Smith, another neighbor, said the boy was with them when they heard the shots and said: “I hope my mama and my little sister are all right.”
Smith told him: “I said, ‘Baby, I think they might have just killed your mama.’ ”
Smith said the family had lived in the home about a year and a half and had moved from the Baltimore area. Hines lived in the home with her adult brother and the children, Smith said.
Hines' brother Derrick Farmer, who lives in Maryland, said he just spoke with his sister on Thanksgiving Day. Hines is the youngest of five children, he said, and the only sister.
He was stunned by the news and said that he had no warning signs of trouble, but he noted Hines had changed churches in the past year and had become more "spiritual." He did not know, however, which church she was recently attending.
"She was more spiritual I guess than before. She’s always been spiritual, but more," he said. "I don't know what went wrong."
Derrick Farmer said his sister was a mother to three children, but had given up the youngest -- a girl who is now two or three years old -- at birth. Hines' husband is incarcerated in Maryland, he said.
Miyoshi Hill, who said she rented the four-bedroom yellow house to Hines, was distraught about the deaths.
Hill said Hines, who had been going to school, was five months behind on her $600-a-month rent. “She had some difficulties, but because of the babies, I let her stay on,” said Hill, who said the daughter had Down’s syndrome.
Hill told the woman a few weeks ago that it couldn’t go on, and it was the first time she’d seen her become belligerent.
“She had some issues. She was battling against herself,” Hill said.
At the home where the woman and her children lived, they had electricity but didn’t have water. Daniel said they were borrowing water from his house, but he told them they couldn’t have more water because the bill was so high.
Elbert Stephens, who lives across the street, said he sometimes drove the family to the store and lent them his lawnmower.
“I’ve never seen any hell-raising over there,” Stephens said.
The neighborhood of single-story houses with asbestos shingles was at one time prosperous, but next-door neighbor Albert Hooks, a deacon at Mount Carmel Baptist Church, has seen the area change.
“It used to be a good neighborhood,” said Hooks, who moved in 50 years ago. “It got to be kind of rough. Lots of crime everywhere. Don’t nobody love nobody.”
Residents, many of whom are older, try to keep their yards up, but time and the tough economy have left houses rundown.
The officers involved in the shooting have been placed on routine administrative leave while the incident is investigated, Campos said.
The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office will conduct autopsies on the woman and the child, police said.
Smith said Nalecia would have turned 5 next month.
“She was my friend and my neighbor,” Smith said. “I am shocked because I didn’t know she was like this.”
-- Staff reporters Marcus K. Garner and Katie Leslie contributed to this story.
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