Atlanta mayor: "Enough is enough" after "protesters" murder 8-year-old girl

Did Secoriea Turner’s life matter? Not to the mobs in the streets, and neither did the other shooting victims in Atlanta as a wave of shootings have followed the retreat of police in the city. The eight-year-old girl got killed on Saturday night when her mother attempted to enter a parking lot blocked off by “protesters.” At least two men fired into the vehicle, striking and killing the little girl.

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This was just one of six “serious” shootings in the city that night, CBS 46 reports, along with an attack on a police station:

According to police, Secoriea Turner was riding in a car with her mom and an adult friend when car exited the interstate near the intersection of University Avenue and Pryor Road. Police said the driver was attempting to enter the parking lot on the 1200 block of Pryor Road when they were confronted by a group of armed individuals who were illegally blocking the entrance.

Someone in the group began shooting at the car, hitting it multiple times including the shot that hit the child.

The wounded girl was immediately taken to Atlanta Medical Center in a private vehicle, but she did not survive her injuries.

The people suspected of shooting the child were described as a group of black males. One of the shooters wore all black, dressed like a bounty hunter, according to police. The second wore a white t-shirt. A $10,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction. Tipsters can remain anonymous and still receive a reward. Call 404-577-8477.

Interestingly, neither CBS 46 nor any other news outlet ever identify the affiliation of the protesters. Was it a Black Lives Matter protest? Or was it some other group? One might think that would be important to journalists, especially those of the who-what-when-why-how school. The absence of any reporting on that point strongly suggests that the answer was not useful to any media outlet’s narratives, as most of our media operate from an entirely different school these days.

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That aside, the problem has now grown larger than narrative. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms declared, “Enough is enough,” and told Atlanta that they couldn’t blame this on police:

“We’re fighting the enemy within when we are shooting each other up in our streets,” the mayor said. “You shot and killed a baby. And it wasn’t one shooter, there was at least two shooters,” she said.

Bottoms said she wants people to have the same passion towards ending community violence that they have for police reform.

“We’ve had over 75 shootings in the city over the past several weeks,” Bottoms said. “You can’t blame that on APD [Atlanta Police Department].”

Bottoms said during the press conference that there had been a number of protests in the area where Brooks was killed and challenges with demonstrators closing roads. Saturday night she said she was told that barriers had been put back up.

“An 8-year-old girl was killed last night because her mother was riding down the street,” Bottoms said. “You don’t want someone on the street who would shoot into a car randomly. If you know them, you should turn them in.”

Turn them in to whom, exactly? The Atlanta police have been on retreat ever since the district attorney charged the two officers involved in the Rayshard Brooks shooting — a decision made before the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had even finished its investigation. The police staged a walkout immediately afterward, and reports of “blue flu” have continued to circulate ever since.

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That has predictably left the streets in control of those who are most willing to use violence. The shooting of eight-year-old Secoriea Turner is a direct result of the lack of will from city leadership to enforce the law and keep order. Police should have been dispatched immediately to take down any illegal barricades; their absence signaled a vacuum of order, and violence fills those vacuums quickly. However, police will not act when the political leadership of a city does not support their efforts to keep order.

Lance Bottoms is correct that the people of Atlanta can’t blame this on the police department. They should blame this on Fulton County DA Paul Howard and Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. If those two don’t act quickly to restore order, Atlanta residents can also start blaming it on Gov. Brian Kemp — unless he orders the National Guard deployed to stop the violence and restore order.

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