DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Editor's note: A previous version of this story included a YouTube video from an unrelated incident which appeared to identify the victim in that shooting as the suspect in this case in Google search results. This story has been updated to correct that error. 11Alive wishes to apologize to the victim's family.
DeKalb County police detectives, investigating another shooting at a gas station at the busy corner of Redan and Panola Roads — this time, on Thursday — would soon find out the name of the man who was killed in the shootout:
Ahmir Rosario.
Rosario, 25, is the same man police say they’d been trying to find and arrest for the armed robbery and shooting at the same gas station on February 8 — three months earlier, almost to the day.
This time Rosario was the one who was shot.
Thursday night, police arrested the man they believe killed him.
It was just this past weekend when residents, saying they are fed up over their crime-soaked communities, marched along Redan Road protesting gas station violence in DeKalb and everywhere else:
Like the wild shootout in March that killed John Battle, who was caught in the cross fire as he was trying to speed away from the shooters.
Like the armed assault of a woman at a gas station in April — the gunman shot and killed Ronald Hodges when Hodges jumped in to save the woman’s life.
One after another, month after month.
Calvin Sims lives near Redan and Panola Roads. He was among the marchers last weekend.
He said people need to hit the gas station owners and operators where it would hurt the most — in their pocketbooks.
“I just don’t think we should patronize these gas stations if there’s not security there, it’s just not safe,” Sims said Thursday.
DeKalb County Commissioner Lorraine Cochran-Johnson is working to pass a new ordinance requiring so-called violent and high-risk businesses to install cameras covering every square inch of their properties, inside and outside, and to spend even more money on additional security to protect customers.
“That is a small investment to make when we are dealing with lives that are being lost,” Cochran-Johnson told 11Alive in March when she first proposed the ordinance.
The Valero gas station at Redan and Panola Roads that has had two shootings in the past three months does have some security cameras visible outside.
No one at the business would comment.
In front of the gas station on Thursday, a young mom of two, Kiyah Smith, was waiting with her children at the MARTA bus stop, trying not to get tangled up in the police officers’ yellow crime scene tape.
She and her kids saw and heard it all.
“Just a lot of arguing, and I turned around, and it was like gunfire, people running,” Smith said.
She is numb to it all.
“I mean, yes, it’s very concerning, but, it’s like, that’s the life of living in this type of neighborhood. You kind of get used to it after a certain amount of time," she said.
And she doesn’t believe there’s anywhere she could move her kids to escape.
“I mean, everywhere in Atlanta’s the same, I stayed on the southside of Atlanta, it’s exactly the same," she said.
DeKalb County commissioners are studying Cochran-Johnson's proposed crime safety ordinance as it moves toward a vote on the Commission.