Atlanta

DA: Gang crisis in metro Atlanta trickling down to children

ATLANTA — There’s a gang crisis in metro Atlanta.

The Fulton County district attorney told Channel 2’s Mark Winne on Friday he’s shocked the trend is trickling down to children, and it needs to stop.

“We’ve got to do something to turn this trend around,” Paul Howard said.

Fulton County DA Paul Howard talks with Channel 2's Mark Winne about the gang crisis in metro Atlanta.

He says gang activity is such an epidemic that members are naming their children with gang references.

“Within the last two weeks, we have tried five gang-related cases. Four of those cases, they’ve been homicides,” Howard said.

He says an infant’s picture played a role in a gang murder case that ended Thursday. In the photo, the infant’s head was wrapped in the mom's former gang's colors.

“(It was) a real sharp shock to the people on my staff when we located this photograph,” Howard said.

He says it represents how embedded gang life is in the lives of too many young people.

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“It says to me that, as responsible adults, that we have got to start to do something to turn this trend around,” Howard said.

Howard says one of the five gang cases in the past two weeks resulted in a guilty verdict against three for the murder of Darius Bottoms, the nephew of Atlanta’s mayor-elect. Bottoms was not in a gang, but was an innocent teenager killed in a case of mistaken identity.

“She has said to me that once she is finished with the inauguration, we’re gonna sit down and we’re gonna talk about some real solutions,” Howard said about Mayor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Defense lawyer Dennis Scheib told Winne he represented someone in one of the gang cases that wrapped up this week. In that case, the jury foreperson apparently was so disturbed by the gang members in the audience that someone else took over as foreperson and read the verdict.

“We’ve gotta start much earlier in our homes, communities and in our schools to make sure that people are not continuing to join gangs,” Howard said.

Howard said the baby’s mother denied the bandana was there because of the gang, but the caption on the photo when she posted in on social media said otherwise.

Howard says the city of Atlanta, Fulton County and United Way have combined to create a gang coordinator's office with the mission of heading off young people from gang activity, but he says we must do much more.