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Mom says she has lost two sons to gun violence.
An Atlanta mother opens up after losing not one, but two sons to gun violence in just 9 months. The mother says her 17-year-old son was being pursued by a violent Atlanta street gang when he and two other men were killed in a triple shooting on Evans Street in the West End last weekend.
ATLANTA - An Atlanta mother doesn't know where to turn after losing two sons to gun violence in nine short months.
Her most recent son was shot and killed in a triple murder on Evans Street in the West End over the weekend.
She was very transparent during her interview and said she had been in a gang herself, but is now back on her feet.
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She said, she just didn't want the same life for her sons.
"I didn't want them in the streets. I have been down that road. I was a gangster. I got felonies," mother Deidra Johnson confessed.
The 42-year-old maintenance supervisor said she knew what it was like to be chewed up by the streets.
That is the primary reason she, as a felon, wanted more for her four children.
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In January, she says her older son Dahrell Johnson was killed in her hometown of Kansas City, and just this past weekend, her younger son, 17-year-old Derron Johnson was shot and killed along with two other men in a triple shooting on Evans Street in the West End.
She said she learned her son was killed on Instagram, and believes the shooting was gang related.
"My son was sought out. He was in E5 territory in West End. They tried to make him feel like he was family, but where were y'all when he got gunned down in the street," Ms. Johnson openly wept.
The mother of four now fears for her own safety. She says that the gang threatened her and her son before the deadly shooting.
She admits Darron, who is autistic, had a troubled past.
She says she begged a judge to help him just last week when he was released from the Metro Regional Youth Detention Center for stealing cars.
"This was his fourth time being in there. I just didn't want him to catch a felony and he was so smart. I asked the judge if this boy is so smart that he's stealing Tesla's and Tesla's can't be stolen, why not put him in engineering," she wept.
Johnson feels helpless and now fears for her own safety after the gang threatened her life.
"I love my kids, man. I tried. I tried," she sobbed.
Ms. Johnson says many people are encouraging her to move, get a new car, or leave the state for her own safety.
She says the man who hired a hot man to kill her son is still out there.
Ms. Johnson says her focus now will be on burying her son. She says she has no money to do that and has started a GoFundMe to help.
Atlanta Police say they have more than 145 known gangs in their files.