ATLANTA — Two people were shot in southwest Atlanta on Friday morning in an incident police believe is related to an earlier shooting on I-75/85 that left two people dead.
Atlanta Police did not detail exactly how they think the two incidents are related, but an APD release said that investigators "believe this incident appears to be related to the homicide" on the interstate.
That earlier incident happened around 4 a.m., with authorities encountering a car riddled with bullets and a passenger, later identified by the Fulton County Medical Examiner as 28-year-old Darius Ford, who was declared dead on scene. The driver, 31-year-old Christian McMiller, was taken to the hospital but Atlanta Police later said he had died of his injuries.
Police said hey found two firearms on the scene but there was no apparent trace of a suspect.
In the second incident, police said a man was found with a gunshot wound on 7th Street who was "alert, conscious and breathing" around 10:30 a.m., more than six hours after the original shooting.
He was taken to a hospital in stable condition.
A second victim was found outside a package store on Cleveland Avenue. That man, police said, was an innocent bystander who was evidently hit by a bullet shot over on 7th Avenue, a little less than a quarter mile away.
Police said the 7th Avenue victim was shot as a "result of a dispute" but did not have further details on what may have led up to gunfire.