Broken gates blamed in fatal shooting during Buckhead dognapping, lawsuit filed
Deadly apartment shooting under investigation
Atlanta police are investigating after some sort of fight at an apartment complex in Buckhead ends with a man shot to death. It happened just before 1:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon on Lindbergh Place. Police responded to a shots fired call. The victim later died in the hospital.
ATLANTA - The family of a 22-year-old man gunned down at his Buckhead apartment complex while walking his French bulldog has announced a lawsuit against the company that owned the complex.
"I was reassured that I was going to be in a safe place. I am a single mother. I work two jobs to bring myself to a safe place, and unfortunately they failed him, they failed me," McKinnon's mom, Sahr McKinnon, told reporters during a news conference at their attorney's office in Atlanta Thursday.
Jayden McKinnon was shot and killed in Lindbergh in August. His mother believes her son would be alive today had the owners of the property ensured the security gates were working properly.
"Predators know when the gates aren't working and that's what happened here. The assailant drove right through the broken gates and murdered Jayden, taking his dogs," said attorney L. Chris Stewart.
Police say that McKinnon was walking his dogs on the afternoon of Aug. 12 at Willowcrest in Lindbergh when a gunman shot him in the neck.
Medics rushed McKinnon to Grady Hospital where he later died from his injuries.
Stewart is representing the victim's family. He has filed suit against the property owners. Attorneys contend property owners were negligent, and that the entrance gate wasn't working at the time of the deadly incident.
"The entire front gate had been broken for weeks, maybe months," Stewart maintained. "And shockingly after he was murdered it was fixed the next day. The next day."
Residents told FOX 5 they thought the shooting happened during an attempted robbery because McKinnon's bulldog was missing.
Jayden McKinnon and his dogs (Courtesy of the family)
After days of investigating, police say they identified a suspect in the shooting as 24-year-old David Kenney. Officers arrested Kenney on Aug. 18 and charged him with murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Investigators say they also have recovered Kenney's bulldog and returned him to the victim's family.
Stewart claims the deadly shooting wasn't an isolated incident.
"We've already tracked numerous crimes that were happening on the property. This wasn't a random incident," he said. "There were crimes happening at the complex."
The lawyers claim that Kenney wasn't a resident at the complex and the broken gate allowed him to get in.
According to the lawsuit, the company also knew that multiple other criminal incidents had happened on the premises and surrounding areas and had failed to warn the residents.
The family is asking for compensatory damages, special damages, and damages related to wrongful death in an amount to be determined at trial.
FOX 5 reached out to the owners of the property. They did not respond to the request for a comment.