ATLANTA — Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens says the past weekend was the most violent one the city’s seen in a long time, but insisted the city was still safe.
Two teenagers were shot in Piedmont Park on Sunday, one died.
Channel 2’s Richard Elliot was in Atlanta, where Dickens said the incidents over the weekend were outside of the Atlanta Police Department’s control.
Four were shot in southwest Atlanta, two were shot at Piedmont Park and a 3-year-old was killed, all in unrelated incidents over the weekend.
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Dickens said the most recent incidents, the City of Atlanta is safe and homicides are way down compared to previous years.
Security camera footage released by APD shows crowds of people running for their lives as shots rang out at Piedmont Park on Sunday night.
Two teenage girls were hit in the crossfire. One, 16-year-old Taniah Robinson, died.
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Police are still searching for the shooters, and a motive.
On the other side of town, gunfire wounded four people, one critically.
“A handful of individuals made some terrible decisions,” Dickens said at a briefing on Monday.
Dickens and APD are now offering a $15,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of whoever killed Robinson.
The mayor said that none of the violence happened at any permitted events, including a festival at Piedmont Park.
While the shooting at the park happened on one side, city officials said the size of the park kept events separate.
The festival at Piedmont Park, which was permitted, sanctioned an had security, was on the other side.
But the gathering on the side where the shooting happened, and Robinson was killed, had no permits, was not sanctioned and had no security present.
Ben Williams, a visitor to Piedmont Park, told Channel 2 Action News that he’d heard about the violence over the weekend but still felt safe coming to the park.
“I think it was just unfortunate, very unfortunate,” Williams said. “You know, people are out having a good time. I think everybody should, you know, be safe, just be able to enjoy Easter. ”
Dickens said homicides in Atlanta were much lower than other years, but pointed out that Sunday was a convergence of Easter, 404 Day and spring break for six metro Atlanta school systems.
The mayor made no bones about it, he’s upset by the gun violence.
“Let’s be honest, there are too many guns on our streets and in the hands of too many people who should not have them, in too many places they should not be,” Dickens said.
Four years ago, there were 48 homicides in Atlanta by this time of year, according to Dickens. He said this year, there have only been 17.
But the mayor said that was still too many.
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