ATLANTA — Dozens of family and friends gathered outside the North Avenue Marta Station, sharing hugs, setting up flowers and lighting candles to honor the memory of Osiris Bennett. Bennett, 23, was shot and killed just three days earlier by MARTA Police.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, two MARTA Police officers, wearing plain clothes, approached Bennett around 4:30 p.m. Friday. MARTA Police said Bennett was trying to smoke marijuana inside the station. They said when officers confronted him and showed them their badges, he tried to run away and then fight them. The GBI said one officer tased Bennett.
Officials said at one point, Bennett pointed a gun at the officers, and that's when one of them shot Bennett. He later died at Grady Hospital. The ensuing investigation temporarily shut down service at the North Avenue MARTA station Friday night.
"We have zero information, no officers names have been released, no footage," Carriengton Irving, Bennett's sister, said.
Irving said Bennett was known as the man of the house, going to work every day and providing financially for his mother and the rest of their family. Bennett's girlfriend, Nydia Person, wants to know why officers were not in uniform. She is also asking for the names of the officers involved and any surveillance footage.
11Alive has requested bodycam video and MARTA camera footage, but the GBI said it is not releasing any video until its independent investigation is completed, which is their standard policy in these types of cases.
“We don’t have no footage of anything," Person said. "We don’t know if they really presented themselves to him or not. We only have the MARTA police department’s statement. Y’all are undercover cops. You’re telling me y’all will blow your cover for someone that’s smoking marijuana? Justice can’t be served the way we want it to be served. He shouldn’t even be gone if we’re being honest. He shouldn’t be gone from here.”
Next Sunday would have been Bennett's 24th birthday, Person said. She said he was going to visit his mother, who he had not seen in a couple of years, to celebrate. Person said Bennett was a mechanic who liked working on cars. She said he ultimately wanted to open up his own clothing shop.
"We had conversations every single day about how we were working on bettering our lives," Person said. "He had a whole plan sketched out for everything. He’s physically not here with us. But we all know spiritually he’s still here with us.”
Rabb Love, who said he had known Bennett since he was young, called him a "bigger than life" person.
"He was a unicorn, and his life was stolen from him over nothing," Love said. "It’s so repetitive. The cycle of young Black men being murdered, it should not be normalized. This cannot end with this man’s life and his blood being spilled, and we’re getting no type of answers. This can’t be another open and shut case.”
The GBI said it was conducting an independent investigation, and that it would turn over its findings to the district attorney for review. MARTA Police declined to comment on the case, referring 11Alive to the GBI. Neither agency would answer what the status of the officers involved was at this time.