A masked gunman opened fire on a courtesy officer and a civilian at a Buckhead apartment building, then escaped after a foot chase, on May 15 in one of three mysterious gunfire incidents that day that were more serious than police revealed at the time.
No one was injured, according to an Atlanta Police Department incident report that detailed the dramatic crime, previously described by APD only as officers checking the scene.
Meanwhile, a resident says that yet another gunshot was heard at the complex the following day, but it appears that no one called the police.
APD previously said officers were on “high alert” after the mysterious string of “shots fired” calls and gunfire evidence on May 15 at the Allure in Buckhead Village apartments at 360 Pharr Road.
The first call came around 4:30 a.m., for shots fired in the building’s parking deck. Officers could not locate anything related to gunshots, according to APD.
The second report came around 9:50 a.m., for shots fired at a particular fourth-floor unit. APD said at the time that officers found bullet holes in the door and awoke some occupants of the unit, who turned out not to live there.
The full incident report gives more details of that encounter. The door had 11 bullet holes, according to APD. The tenant whose name is on the lease was not there, and no one answered the door when a group of officers knocked repeatedly. The officers then encountered a woman who said she was at the unit to see her boyfriend, whom she called. The door opened and officers found three men inside the unit. The men said they were visitors who had arrived the previous night with a group of other people. They said they awoke to the gunfire and were too scared to call the police. Officers allowed all four people to leave after they were checked for warrants and issued a criminal trespass warning from the property manager.
The final shots-fired report on May 15 came around 2:50 p.m. At the time, an APD spokesperson said only that “officers checked the area and located shell casings.” But a resident at the time reported seeing about 15 officers, some armed with rifles, racing to the area, and the incident report explains why.
The incident began with a request for a courtesy officer to escort a man to the same fourth-floor apartment. A courtesy officer provides security for an apartment complex, and is typically a sworn law enforcement officer who lives in a unit; in this case, APD could not immediately clarify the Allure officer’s status.
The officer escorted the man, a New York City resident who said he need to retrieve several items from the apartment. The New Yorker was not the tenant and also was not among the men found in the unit earlier that day.
When the officer and the man he was escorting exited the unit, a “tall black male wearing a black mask, dreads and dark clothing shot twice” toward them, according to the incident report. The officer chased the gunman through a stairway and onto Grandview Avenue.
Reports from various witnesses indicate that a man ran to a bank on Pharr Road and got into a sedan with at least two other men, which sped away toward Peachtree Road.
The incident report describes a massive police response, with those on the scene including Maj. Andrew Senzer, the commander of Buckhead’s Zone 2 precinct. A search warrant was executed later at the property, according to the report.
A resident who wished to remain anonymous told the Reporter that at least one other gunshot was heard at or near the property the following day, May 16, and was discussed among some other residents. The resident did not call 911, and APD said it received no shots-fired reports for that property that day.