Fabian Sheats is one of the Atlanta Police Department’s “Ten Most Wanted” criminals.
It took me a little more than a day to find him. But then again, I’m not as busy as the cops.
More truthfully, Sheats, who at 35 is ancient in the world of street hustling, is more like one of Atlanta's least wanted criminals — a lifelong screw-up facing middle age who says he's trying to make things right.
He is wanted for strong-arm robbery for allegedly pushing a clerk out of the way and grabbing a pile of cash from a convenience store on Joseph E. Boone Boulevard, the street that draws him to trouble like a moth to a flame.
The one-time dope peddler became infamous after his arrest in November 2006 kicked off a series of events that led to the death of Kathryn Johnston, the 92-year-old Atlanta woman who was shot to death in her living room by the APD's drug squad.
At the time, Sheats had been arrested on drug-selling charges three times in four months outside the same convenience store. After the third arrest, the cops, looking to land someone up the food chain, pressured him to give up his source.
The cops said he pointed at a home on nearby Neal Street, saying he saw a kilo of cocaine there. They, in turn, faked an investigation, got a fraudulent warrant to batter down the door, and two hours later an innocent old lady was dead.
The killing led to an intense scandal that landed three narcotics detectives in prison in 2009 and left the APD's reputation in tatters.
And this year, in August, the city designated a future green space in the northwest Atlanta neighborhood as the Kathryn Johnston Memorial Park.
I covered the whole ordeal for the AJC. And in 2010, I wrote about Sheats, a low-level drudge in the Atlanta crime world who kept cops and court officials busy.
Credit: AJC
In December 2006 he was released after the Johnston affair but was arrested twice in early 2007 with crack and pot. Even though judges tried to ratchet up his punishment, it seemed not to matter.
“He just continuously goes out to the same location and deals drugs,” an incredulous prosecutor told a judge in 2007. Sheats received a 10-year sentence, with 10 months to be served in prison, a slap on the wrist.
Then in January 2008, he was arrested at his familiar spot with pot. (Boone Boulevard was then Simpson Street.) He got five years’ probation, one to serve in prison. He disappeared but cops quickly found him at his favorite spot with some weed.
In August 2008, he was sentenced to 10 years, two to serve. The judge told him, “You need to get out of this business.”
He didn’t. In August 2010, police struggled with him at a Boone Boulevard convenience store (of course) and found him with crack and pot, which is where we left him in the 2010 story.
Sheats remained in prison until September 2015.
For the past three years, Sheats has largely (for him) stayed out of trouble. He was written up for drinking a 24-ounce Icehouse outside Henry’s Pack-a-Sack on Boone; he was involved in three traffic stops, one in which he was a passenger in a stolen car; and he was arrested after getting physical with a woman (it seems she was a relative) over money. He pleaded to misdemeanor battery.
The incident that makes him a most-wanted criminal occurred on June 2 at Henry’s Pack-a-Sack, which is perhaps 150 feet from his old trouble-making haunt.
He asked for a Red Bull, sat on the counter, drank it, and then allegedly jumped over the counter, pushed aside the clerk and took the cash he was counting. The store reported losing $4,000-plus. That’s hard-earned money, made $2, $4 and $6 at a time.
The owner of the store, Mohammad Hoque, told me Sheats returned shortly after the incident and gave him $2,900.
“He’s scared,” said Hoque, a Bangladeshi immigrant with a flowing white beard. “He has a lot of crimes building up.”
Hoque said that Sheats called on Tuesday, the day after hearing I was asking around for him. The streets have eyes when a white guy is snooping around that stretch of Boone Boulevard.
Sheats, Hoque said, “told me he was going to give me the rest of the money.”
“If he pays me, then I will go to court and say to the judge I have no complaint, you do what you do,” Hoque said. “I’m a poor man, too. I’m an immigrant working hard to make it.”
I got Sheats’ number and he brusquely said he’d call back. Minutes later, he did.
“I’m a man of my word,” he said.
In an emotional 45-minute conversation, Sheats would not talk a lot about the Red Bull robbery other than to say, “To right my wrong, I gave him the money I had in my possession. I went up there to apologize.”
Sheats, who is a father, said he is good for the rest of the money, although he doesn’t have it yet.
“I’m not committing crimes; I’m not committing no violence; I’m not selling no drugs,” Sheats said. “I’m a normal human being trying to take care of my family.”
APD’s Ten Most Wanted has seven fugitives sought for aggravated assault, two sought for armed robbery … and Sheats.
Carlos Campos, APD’s spokesman, says Sheats is no fledgling. “He is a repeat offender who recently committed a strong-arm robbery and needs to be off the streets and in jail.”
Sheats says the Kathryn Johnston case caused police to target him. However, one can argue that he found himself in their cross hairs beforehand.
He denies pointing to the old lady’s house and saying there were drugs inside, although it’s hard to figure out why the cops would have chosen the house otherwise.
Still, the whole sordid incident is embedded in his DNA.
“I’ve had to deal with it for 12 years,” Sheats said. “People call me a snitch, a rat. Not to my face. But it hurts.
“Put that in your article: Fabian Sheats, he’s always been solid. He’s no snitch. I’m the other ‘S’ word. Solid. Rock-solid since I was born. I can’t go against the code.”
Sheats said he’s not actively hiding from the police, and said he has gotten used to the game.
“I’ve been going (to jail) since I was a juvenile. Send me back (in), and a couple years I’ll be back (out).”
This time, he swears, the world will see the law-abiding Fabian Sheats that has been hiding inside.
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