ATLANTA — At least 13 people were hurt and one person killed after a second weekend of violent shootings spanned Atlanta.
It was violence city leaders and police feared was possible, with the NBA All-Star Game attracting large crowds to the city.
The shootings happened between Friday night and Sunday night.
In one Atlanta Police incident report, officers said a man was killed after someone shot him in the chest near Howell Place SW around midnight Saturday.
In another case from Saturday, police said a witness told them someone in a car fired “several shots at a pair of teenagers on the sidewalk…” near Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SW and Boulder Park Drive.
While officers were investigating that, the responding officers were called to another shooting and found a man who'd been shot in the ankle.
Atlanta City Councilman Michael Julian Bond is on the city’s public safety committee and said the spike in gun violence is unacceptable and hurts the city as well as the people who live here.
“What I’m really concerned about is that when we have future events, we’ll have a repeat of this kind of violence,” he said.
Bond said the open clubs and bars could also be drawing people to the city, leading to some of the violence.
“People are welcome in Atlanta, but we expect you to obey the law and if you don’t, we’re going to enforce the law,” he said. “They’re really all accountable. This is the same concerns the government takes to try and make sure people are safe and socially distanced.”
Atlanta Police Department's crime stats for 2021 have not been updated to include this past weekend yet, but as of the latest report from Feb. 20, there have been 78 shootings in Atlanta this year, which is up 32% from the same time last year.
APD declined an 11Alive request for an interview while Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ office did not respond to a request or provide a statement. However, both have said in the past they are enlisting the FBI to help address crime, with the FBI describing its role as "gathering intelligence and sharing it with our partners.”