DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Neighbors say a man killed in a drive-by shooting wasn’t just a victim. They say he was a mentor to teens in the neighborhood.
Chauncey Newman was shot and killed at a home on Rockcliff Road Thursday morning. The same shooting killed 13-year-old Demarcus Shirley.
Newman’s friends told Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes that he had a troubled life growing up in Baltimore, but turned everything around in Atlanta.
Witnesses and neighbors say Newman was known as “Pops” and would help out others.
Abron Dix lives next door to what he calls an unofficial group home he said Newman was running on Rockcliff Road.
Dix said he respected Newman for taking several teens and young men under his wing..
He said on any given day there would be about 10 boys staying in this home at one time
“He was trying to do what he could do – to aid children and these teenagers in life," Dix said.
Fernandes spoke to one of Newman’s childhood friends from Maryland on the phone.
He couldn’t believe Newman worked so hard to get out of Baltimore – to turn his life around - just for someone in metro Atlanta to take his life.
Some neighbors don’t believe Newman was the target, and they’re not sure if the teens were either.
Police aren’t saying much about the investigation’s status.
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