Fourteen-year-old Sonja Star Harrison was eight months pregnant and expecting to deliver a baby girl just before New Year’s Day, but the AJC. reports that tragedy struck her Southwest Atlanta apartment when a gun was fired in the apartment above. The bullet passed through the ceiling and struck Harrison in the head, killing her and her unborn baby.
“She liked to dance, she liked to sing, Janiyah Copelin, 14, a close friend of the victim who was excited about the baby’s arrival, told the news outlet.
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No suspects have been named and Harrison’s mother has called on the shooter to surrender to police.
“They took her life — and my grand baby’s life,” Sonja Harrison said, the AJC writes. “They took away two lives from me.”
“Not only do you hurt that person, you hurt everybody and the family,” she told Channel 2’s Nicole Carr. The reporter made several attempts to contact management at the Pavilion Place Apartments to find out who lived above Harrison’s daughter.
Atlanta police were called to the complex Monday evening after a 911 caller reported a shooting. When officers arrived, the teen was found dead from a random gunshot wound.
“The preliminary investigation has revealed that the gunshot came from the apartment directly above the apartment where the victim was located,” Officer Lisa Bender said in an email statement.
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Family and neighbors are worried about their safety because within hours of the teen’s death, gunshots were fired again in the same complex, according to WSBTV. When police arrived, they found a 21-year-old woman shot in the head, reports the television news outlet. The two deaths didn’t appear to be related as of Tuesday but both remained under investigation, the report notes.
Two other deaths have been reported at the complex, the report says. In November 2015, a 24-year-old mother of three was fatally shot by her boyfriend. And in October 2017, a three-year-old boy was reportedly beaten to death for eating a cupcake. The child’s godmother and her sister were both charged with his murder.