Two teens dead, multiple shot at southwest Atlanta apartment complex
ATLANTA - Atlanta police have reported multiple teenagers shot, leaving two dead in what police have called a shootout near an apartment complex on the 3000 block of Continental Colony Parkway in southwest Atlanta. A 14-year-old boy and 16-year-old boy were pronounced dead at the scene.
On Saturday evening around 5:09 p.m. police began their investigation at the scene. The Atlanta Public Schools Police Department confirmed with FOX 5 that they were also on the scene as some of the victims involved were students from the district. Police confirmed the other victims attended other metro school districts.
Three teenaged and pre-teenaged victims were reportedly taken to a local hospital by a private vehicle before police arrived. Those victims included an 11-year-old boy, a 15-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy.
Deputy Chief Charles Hampton Jr. said this shootout began as a dispute on social media that escalated to exchanged gunfire when one group of teenagers came to the apartment complex with firearms.
"I hate being here talking about kids and gun fire. We just ask that parents know where your kids are, know what they're doing, check rooms," the deputy chief said. "There are just too many guns in the hands of our youth. Like I said several weeks ago, this should be a time that we are getting ready for the holidays, but we have at least two families that will be planning for funerals."
Sunday afternoon, Mayor Andre Dickens weighed in on the incident expressing his commitment to making the city a safer place for young people.
"Atlanta is a group project. It takes every single one of us to counter this plague in our community," the mayor said. "From City government, to our police, to our schools, to clergy, to parents and to young people themselves, we must pledge not to accept this violence as formal and do all that we can to end it."
Police say this investigation is ongoing and urge anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers to leave an anonymous tip.
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