One suspect, a 22-year-old man, was arrested on Tuesday, according to Atlanta police.
The incident was at least the second fatal shooting involving a stray bullet in the Atlanta area in nine days.
“I will not cheerlead that we were able to apprehend this person in a short period of time,” Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant said at a news conference. “I am mad as hell that the incident occurred in the first place.”
Dequasie Little was arrested in Decatur, just east of Atlanta, the chief said. Little will face felony murder and aggravated assault charges over what police referred to as a drive-by incident, according to the department’s website.
It is unclear at this time whether Little has obtained an attorney.
“We are confident that we have the shooter,” Bryant said. “We have the first person in this one and we will continue to go after others that we believe were involved in this incident.”
The shooting happened Monday just before 2:40 p.m. at a convenience store roughly 4.5 miles west of downtown, police said on their website.
“This was two people involved in gun violence, and this child was an innocent victim,” Bryant said at a Monday news conference.
Details about what led to the shooting weren’t immediately available.
A woman who lives nearby said that she and her husband heard gunshots.
“Immediately, my heart, it just began to break,” she said. “We actually both kind of teared up. Here we go again. Another life lost. Another senseless death.”
This was the third shooting of a child younger than 6 — two of whom died — in Atlanta this year, Mayor Andre Dickens said Monday.
“These children are bearing the brunt and losing their lives because adults are unable to settle their disputes without going to guns,” Dickens said. “I’m demanding that it stop. We’re going to put an end to it. We’re about to work day and night on this, as we have been, but this, this hurts — it’s a 6-month-old child that we’ve lost.”
British scientist killed by stray bullet while visiting metro Atlanta
The 6-month-old was at least the second person to be killed by a stray bullet in the Atlanta area since last week, according to reports from authorities.
Early on January 16, British scientist Matthew Wilson, 31, was shot while he was in an apartment in the northeast Atlanta suburb of Brookhaven, police said.
Brookhaven police said they responded to 911 calls about shots being fired from an apartment complex there. While officers were checking the area, police said they received another call about a man being shot in an apartment.
When officers arrived at the apartment, they found Wilson in bed with a gunshot wound to his head. He was taken to a hospital, where he died, police said.
Wilson, an astrophysicist from Chertsey in Surrey, England, was visiting loved ones when the shooting happened, according to police.
“This incident appears to be a random act involving individuals participating in the reckless discharge of firearm(s) which led to the tragic death” of Wilson, Brookhaven police said in a news release.
No arrests have been made in the case.