Authorities have charged a suspect in a double shooting that left one man dead and a woman injured last weekend outside a nightclub on Atlanta’s Westside.
Ahmad Youngblood, 19, was taken into custody Wednesday and charged with murder in the Sept. 17 shooting, Atlanta police said in a news release. Investigators said Youngblood was involved in a fight with two people he knew outside Club Crucial along Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway when gunfire erupted about 8 p.m.
“It appears the dispute escalated and one of the males produced a firearm and shot the female and other male,” Atlanta police said previously.
The man killed was later identified as 29-year-old Brant Harper. It wasn’t immediately clear how investigators linked Youngblood to the double shooting or where he was arrested.
As Atlanta grapples with a surge in gun violence, department officials called the shooting “another homicide that did not have to be.”
“Sadly, our officers respond to scenarios like these far too often,” APD wrote on social media. “This is another scenario where individuals decided that using a gun was the best way to resolve a dispute. Now there is one more funeral to plan, more families torn apart, and another person’s life destroyed because they will likely be spending years in prison.”
The department said the pattern of people turning to guns to resolve their disputes “isn’t just a policing issue,” but the result of people making bad decisions in the heat of the moment.
“Gun violence statistics will go down when some gun owners start making better choices,” the department wrote. “In the interim, our officers will continue to respond to 911 calls, arrest lawbreakers, and do all that they can to reduce crime and keep our citizens and city safe.”
In addition to murder, Youngblood is charged with aggravated assault, battery, criminal trespass, disrupting a public school, obstruction and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, online records show. The teenager remained held at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday without bond.
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