Crime & Safety

Gunmen Rob Man Walking Home in East Atlanta

EAST ATLANTA — A man walking home from a Village bar early Sunday, was robbed by three gunmen, Atlanta police said.

The victim told police he was walking home from Mary's bar just before 2 a.m. and was headed east on Glenwood Avenue when three men pounced on him at the Blake Avenue intersection.

One of the men had an AK-47 style weapon, while a second was armed with a semi-automatic handgun, according to the police narrative.

They ordered the victim to empty his pockets and they took his mobile phone.

After the robbery, they told him to continue to walk east on Glenwood, and not to look back.

The victim did as instructed and told police he did not see a vehicle and he could not say in which direction the gunmen fled.

The only description he could provide of his assailants was that they were black and appeared to be in their early 20s.

The robbery is yet another in a ever-growing string of serious crimes that have hit East Atlanta and other neighborhoods within the city limits, including three shooting deaths in the past three months.

Atlanta police initially responded to calls for more law enforcement presence in the Village with more patrols and a visible show of force.

That happened right after the May 25 murder of Patrick Cotrona, but the crush of patrols have since receded.

But it's not just neighborhoods in the city limits that have been besieged with crime this summer. 

Several unincorporated communities in DeKalb County, including Gresham Park, Parkview and Eastland Heights  — all of which abut east Atlanta — have been hit with a rash of residential burglaries and at least one shooting.

Residents in those neighborhoods, some of whom are now contemplating selling their homes, tell East Atlanta Patch DeKalb County police have been slow to respond to their 911 calls, if they respond at all.

Indeed, at a June 8 shooting of a man at the Shell gas station at Eastland Road and East Custer Avenue, Atlanta police waited at least 45 minutes at the crime scene — even though it's outside the city limits — because DeKalb police weren't there to secure the crime scene.


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