Food court shooting, hijacked bus fuel perceptions of crime in Atlanta

A shooting inside the Peachtree Center food court left four people injured.

Two hours later, a bus was diverted a few blocks.

The hijacking suspect is accused of leading police on a high-speed chase and killing someone on the bus. Unusually, the bus hijacking suspect had earlier told reporters that he had witnessed the shooting in the food court.

The chaos and brutality shocked the city and made national news, reigniting concerns about crime and whether Atlanta’s main business district can overcome perceptions that it is unsafe .

AJ Robinson, president and CEO of the downtown business coalition Central Atlanta Progress, lamented that downtown incidents attract additional attention and scrutiny, but he said “it’s part of the territory » to be the face of Atlanta. He said the city has overcome other headline-grabbing incidents in the past.

“These are terrible incidents and we need to do better from a public safety perspective,” Robinson said. “…But I don’t think these incidents themselves have that lasting effect.”

It all started at 2:15 p.m. with an argument inside The Hub, a food hall in the Peachtree Center office tower at 235 Peachtree St. Authorities said Jeremy Malone, 34, of Morrow, pulled out a gun fired and shot three people before fleeing. An on-duty Atlanta police officer shot the suspect. Two people were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in critical condition, while two others were taken to Emory Midtown Hospital.

Around 4:35 p.m., Joseph Grier, 39, was accused by police of carjacking a Gwinnett County Transit bus at 45 Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard, less than a half-mile from The Hub. Police said there were 16 hostages on the bus, one of whom later died from a gunshot wound. The bus chase passed through Fulton, Gwinnett and DeKalb counties, ending around 5:15 p.m. near Tucker with Grier taken into custody.

Credit: Benjamin Hendren

Credit: Benjamin Hendren

Both men have long criminal records. Robinson said the incidents are more of an indictment of Atlanta’s justice system than a sign of insecurity in the downtown area.

“For some reason our justice system seems to fail when it comes to these types of repeat offenders,” he said. “We need to wake up as a community. There are too many guns in Atlanta. There are too many people who resolve their differences with armed people.

Peachtree Center is a series of skyline-defining office towers built by famed Atlanta architect and developer John Portman. Due primarily to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the office market, the 2.5 million square foot complex was foreclosed in 2022, becoming the largest Atlanta real estate to suffer financial distress since the fallout from the Great Recession.

One tower, 225 Peachtree, is completely vacant in case a developer wants to try to convert the building to another use, most likely apartments. The other five towers were 52% occupied at the end of March, according to Transwestern Real Estate Services, the complex’s leasing agency. The company declined to comment on the potential impact of Tuesday’s crime wave on leases and tenant retention.

Stephanie Fischer, president and CEO of the Georgia Restaurant Association, which represents about 23,000 restaurant businesses across the state, praised law enforcement for responding quickly to the shooting at the food court The Hub. Safety is paramount for both restaurant employees and their customers, she said.

“Proper staff training is crucial so that, in the heat of a crisis, employees can protect themselves and their guests,” Fischer said in a statement.

Credit: John Spink / [email protected]

Credit: John Spink / [email protected]

Despite Tuesday’s incidents, violent crime has actually declined in recent years. Homicides rose sharply after 2020, at the height of the pandemic, but 2023 saw a 21% reduction, according to Atlanta police. As of June 1, 2024, homicides were up slightly compared to the same period last year, but aggravated assaults were down 13 percent, police said.

Robinson said the perception of high crime is a constant struggle for urban areas. Although these incidents are often hard to forget, he said history has shown that Atlanta business and commerce tends to persevere despite outbreaks of violence.

“These incidents – whether they are infrastructure incidents such as water outages, tornadoes or floods, or police cars set on fire in front of the CNN Center – do not tend to have a lasting effect,” did he declare. “They’re brutal, but if you look at the history of downtown or anywhere in the commercial areas around Atlanta, those areas are mostly thriving.”