SOUTH FULTON, Ga. — A 5-year-old girl was playing in a bouncy house in April 2017 when bullets ripped through it, hitting her and leaving her paralyzed and injuring a 3-year-old boy as well.
On Monday, the Fulton County District Attorney’s office announced guilty pleas for three alleged gang members for their roles in the drive-by shooting.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard, Jr. announced that 25-year-old Demetrius Gordon, 27-year-old Dewon Love and 20-year-old Andrevius Welch had all pleaded guilty to a full 26-count indictment. The charges included three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, three counts of aggravated battery and two counts of first degree child cruelty, among others.
According to the district attorney’s office, a Fulton County judge sentenced all three to serve 15 years in prison, part of 35-year sentences for Gordon and Love and a 30-year sentence for Welch.
“When gang activity means that three and five-year-old children can’t play in a bouncy house celebrating a birthday without fear of serious injury or death, I submit gang activity has gone way beyond what should be tolerated,” Howard said in a release. “This must stop.”
The girl and boy were in a group of about 10 to 15 children inside the bouncy house at a South Fulton birthday party two years ago, jumping around inside during the early evening when a gun battle broke.
Authorities said a number of adults were “members of an Atlanta criminal street gang” and that they confronted Gordon, Love and Welch when they pulled into the driveway of the house where the party was being held.
According to the district attorney’s office, the people who’d been at the party realized Gordon had a rifle in his lap and tried to take it from him. The car backed out of the driveway, and Gordon and Love fired at the group. The group fired back.
In this exchange of gunfire, police said, bullets from Gordon and Love tore through the bouncy house and hit the 5-year-old girl in the chest and stomach, causing a vertebrae fracture and spinal chord injury, permanently paralyzing her from the waist down.
The boy was shot between the ribs.
Howard said he hoped that the guilty pleas would “provide some semblance of closure to the families of the injured.”
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