Last year an 8-year-old girl named Secoriea Turner was shot and killed by men who had set up roadblocks in the street near the Wendy’s restaurant where Rayshard Brooks was killed. When Ed first wrote about this case on July 6, 2020 he noticed that reports didn’t seem to identify exactly who was behind the shooting:

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.

A couple days later I wrote a follow-up about that shooting which pointed out that the roadblocks had been the subject of multiple complaints by people living in the area. In fact, the president of the Atlanta City Council had published a tweet weeks earlier saying there were men armed with rifles out in the street:

Sad situation someone today and yesterday at Wendy's that is blocked off by armed young men with long guns and pistols. All businesses surrounding are boarded. The tension is in the air and emotions are raw. Police are not in sight. Is this Atlanta? No! We must rise up! pic.twitter.com/At86bIAQYL

— Felicia Moore (@mooreforatlanta) June 21, 2020

The protesters who had taken over the site claimed the people with guns (the ones who shot Secoriea Turner) were not part of their group. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

The obvious question is this: If it wasn’t the protesters who were blocking streets and deciding who could pass, who was it? The people who killed Turner were in the same area blocking off University Avenue for weeks but we’re supposed to believe none of the protesters at the Wendy’s knew who they were?

More than a year later we finally have an answer. Today a Fulton County grand jury indicted two men involved in the shooting. According to prosecutors, both men were members of the Bloods gang and were manning the roadblock where Turner was shot because Rayshard Brooks, who was killed by a police officer in the nearby Wendy’s parking lot, was also a member of the Bloods gang.

According to Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis, [Julian] Conley fired an AR-15 style rifle eight times at the Jeep carrying Secoriea and her mother, Charmaine Turner, after the driver of the vehicle attempted to bypass a barricade guarded by [Jerrion] McKinney and others.

Armed civilians, identified in McKinney’s arrest warrant as members and affiliates of the Bloods street gang, had been manning a barricade on Pryor Road near the intersection of University Avenue for weeks, investigators say…

Willis said the Bloods were motivated to act because Brooks was one of their own.

Lawyers for Brooks’ family claim they had no idea he was a gang member. They are currently suing the city for wrongful death.

The DA says there were other people involved in the incident that led to Turner’s death who haven’t been identified yet. Presumably because they are also gang members who won’t snitch on one another, not even if a little girl is murdered because of their stupid stunt.

Meanwhile, an attorney for Turner’s family said the most sensible thing anyone has about this case:

“There are many more who will never be criminally indicted but should be indicted for their allowing a situation like this to happen in the city of Atlanta,” attorney Mawuli Davis said Friday. “We’re clearer now than we’ve ever been that this was absolutely preventable and did not have to happen but for the city surrendering a block, a neighborhood, to what has now been described as a gang.”

He went on to say, “Her death would not have occurred but for the city’s surrender…of a certain part of the city to these armed, lawless elements.”

Atlanta had its own version of the CHAZ/CHOP and just like that experiment in Seattle, the result in Atlanta was a body count. Again, go back and read what I wrote here. Two people had been shot in the area before Secoriea Turner was killed. Police and the City Council knew about the roadblocks and it was widely reported that police weren’t doing anything about it. It wasn’t until 8-year-old Turner was killed that the Mayor finally said enough was enough. Why did it take so long and why isn’t anyone being held responsible?

We cover a lot of death and mayhem on this site, often on a daily basis, but I’m still angry about this. This was a little girl who deserved to be protected. Instead, everyone was so afraid of offending BLM protesters that the police sat back and let gang members control the streets with rifles. The DA called it “one of the saddest cases I’ve seen” and she’s right. Here’s a bit of today’s announcement.

JUST IN: We just got these photos of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, who was killed last night near the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks died: https://t.co/U2niKwoxXF pic.twitter.com/GI9zpSlbLl

— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) July 5, 2020