South Fulton County

Victims file lawsuit against crime-ridden shopping center following attack

EAST POINT, Ga. — People are worried for their safety after attackers pistol-whipped a woman in a busy shopping center.

Channel 2's Nefertiti Jaquez learned that a lawsuit has now been filed and there are claims the area is unsafe for shoppers.

“Who doesn’t want to feel safe when they’re shopping?” shopper Noel Ross said.

Ross said he’s concerned about his safety while shopping at one of the busiest plazas in the metro area.

Camp Creek Marketplace sits just off Interstate 285 and many use the road it sits on to get to Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.

“People getting beat, almost to death, old women getting robbed. Of course, they should be doing more,” Ross said.


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Jaquez has learned two women were viciously carjacked at the shopping center – all in a matter of three months.

“It makes no sense, and everybody is fed up and upset about it,” Ross said.

Jaquez pulled police records for the area and found that a 41-year-old woman was pistol-whipped Jan. 20 by a suspect she described as a teenage high schooler as she sat in her Mercedes about to leave a Lowe’s home improvement store.

Since then, we’ve learned the victim has retained a lawyer and is suing because the beating caused a traumatic brain injury.

Then last week, Channel 2 Action News was the first to show video of yet another woman being beaten and carjacked while at the pump of a BJ’s Wholesale Club gas station just a few feet away.
"We need better security," Ross told Jaquez.

Statistics from 2017 show that crimes around the shopping plaza were 10 times higher than the national average for a similar location.

That has customers wondering if the security guards working the plaza are doing enough.

"I mean, he’s been sitting over there for 20 minutes since we’ve been here. He’s got the whole other side (of the shopping center). It’s almost impossible," another shopper said.