Elleven45 lounge deadly shooting: Owners agree to 60-day closure of club

ATLANTA - The City of Atlanta and Elleven45 Lounge have agreed to a 60-day closure of the club. City officials were calling for the club's closure after the recent deadly shooting. The club's owners defended their safety record online and claimed it was being racially targeted. The nightclub also indicated it planned to enhance its security. 

The owners and the city will meet again in early August to discuss the club's future. 

ORIGINAL STORY

The parents of an Albany State University student killed in a nightclub shooting are now suing the owners. Mariam Creighton was shot and killed at the Elleven45 lounge in Buckhead. Her family filed a wrongful death suit on Tuesday.

Creighton is struggling to come to terms with her death.

"It’s been a rough day," said Parker Miller, the family’s lawyer and member of the Beasley Allen Law Firm. "It’s incomprehensible what happened."

Creighton was shot and killed at the lounge on Peachtree Road on May 12. Atlanta police say a fight broke out inside the club. The altercation escalated into gunfire. Creighton was a bystander.

"This should’ve never happened," Miller said.

Nakyris Ridley was also shot and killed. Four other people were wounded. Creighton’s parents, Juan Umberto Creighton and Tracey Easton, filed suit on Tuesday against the lounge. They say the nightclub was negligent.

"They knew and could have absolutely utilized security measures to keep what happened from happening," Miller said.

The city is already suing the club. Officials want to shut it down, calling it a public nuisance.

"We’re talking multiple shootings, multiple stabbings," Miller said. "They know of or should have known about how dangerous this facility was."

Creighton, a volleyball player and a biology major at Albany State University, was only one semester away from graduating.

Mariam Creighton (Credit: Albany State University, Golden Rams Volleyball)

"Our society as a whole is looking for people like Mari," Miller said. "She is precisely the type of person our community needs and needed."

FOX 5 tried to call the man listed as the registered agent for the lounge, but we have not heard back as of this publication.