Cleveland Avenue Murders in Atlanta | The advisor’s plea

ATLANTA — Atlanta police responded to three homicides within a one-mile radius along Cleveland Avenue since Feb. 11 of this year.

The most recent murder took place Monday afternoon in front of the library on Cleveland Avenue. The victim was identified as Doug Banks, who Atlanta City Councilman Antonio Lewis said lived nearby.

“I saw Doug walking the streets with his kids all the time,” Lewis said.

Luckily, Banks didn’t have his children with him when someone shot him to death.

“It’s a community issue,” Lewis said.

Five days before Banks was shot, just around the corner, 16-year-old Rodney Thomas was gunned down along Judy Lane.

“Rodney was lying in his grandmother’s house, in the bedroom,” Lewis said.

He said it was the victim’s grandmother who found the teen.

“As a child raised by his grandmother like me, I can only imagine this. He was shot in his bed,” he said.

Lewis added: “These are personal issues for me.”

Violence has long been a problem on Cleveland Avenue, and many residents of the neighborhood – which Councilman Lewis represents in District 12 – are personally affected. In addition to the three homicides that occurred along Cleveland Avenue this year, APD responded to eight other homicides, all within a five-mile radius of Cleveland Avenue.

Lewis offers a few proposals that he believes will help alleviate the situation.

“I asked for my fire station to reopen, I asked for our library to reopen so we can have more light on that corner,” Lewis said. “Yesterday, when Doug was murdered right here, there would have been a security guard in this library waiting for children who came to the library, because that was one of the security guard’s jobs.”

11Alive reached out to Fulton County to see if the county plans to reopen the Cleveland Avenue library. As of Tuesday evening, the county had not ruled one way or the other.

Atlanta Fire Rescue confirmed to 11Alive that they plan to rebuild and reopen Fire Station 30 at the corner of Cleveland Avenue and Macon Drive. AFR said the timeline for reopening the fire station and turning the lights back on will depend on how long it takes to obtain permits and complete construction.

Regarding the AFR covering the area where the fire station is closed, they said: “As construction plans move forward, firefighters and paramedics from Fire Station 2 and Fire Station 34 is currently responding to all emergency 911 calls in Fire Station 30 while it is temporarily out of service. “.