ATLANTA — A deadly stabbing along the Atlanta Beltline is raising new questions about how repeat offenders are tracked and how their criminal histories are presented to judges.
Police say 29-year-old Ramon Harris was stabbed during an argument along the Beltline. The suspect, Johnathan Hamby, is accused of stabbing Harris.
Witness Jessica Redd captured video of the confrontation.
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“They got into a full-blown argument and that’s when the man pulled out the knife and was trying to slash everyone around him,” Redd told Channel 2’s Brittany Kleinpeter.
Redd said the argument continued before Hamby stabbed Harris.
“I was scared…I did not want to go towards him. You can see in the video – I tried to keep my distance,” she said.
Friends of Harris shared photos of him and described him as an artist.
Police say Hamby had at least 30 prior arrests.
Channel 2 Action News also found nine Fulton County arrests dating back to 2011.
Court records show that in March, a petition was filed in DeKalb County seeking to revoke Hamby’s probation.
Hamby also had a previous stabbing case. In 2017, he was accused of stabbing another man multiple times along Piedmont Road.
That lengthy history is at the center of a larger effort to make sure repeat offenders are identified, and their records are clearly available to the people making decisions about their cases.
Kleinpeter spoke with Dave Wilkinson, president of the Atlanta Police Foundation and chair of Fulton County’s Repeat Offender Commission, about that effort to address gaps in that system.
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“You’re only as good as the data you have. If the judges don’t have the data that’s a big problem and that is what was happening,” Wilkinson said.
He says a repeat offender tracking unit is now working to make sure people with extensive criminal histories are flagged in the system.
“The repeat offender tracking unit is doing incredible work to make sure these individuals ... are flagged in the system as a repeat offender,” Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson says the goal is to make sure judges have a clearer picture of a defendant’s history and can determine whether a case requires additional scrutiny.
He acknowledged that the changes will take time.
“We’re not going to give up. We’re going to keep fighting. We have a lot of good people trying to fix this issue,” Wilkinson said.
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