Shooting in Buckhead leaves 1 dead, 1 injured

Police say Atlanta’s 110th homicide of year involved drugs.

The deadly August in Atlanta continued early Friday when a shooting at a Buckhead apartment building left a resident dead, according to police.

The man’s death was being investigated as the city’s 110th homicide of the year and the 19th this month. Police also investigated 19 homicides in March, accord-

ing to department data. Only a handful of homi- cides have been reported in Buckhead this year, and the latest shooting remains under investigation. A 30-year-old man was dead and two suspects were charged with murder after what investigators believe was a botched drug-related robbery, police said Friday. One of the suspects was also injured by gunfire.

Officers were called to the Prominence Apartments at the corner of Lenox and Pied- mont roads to investigate gunfire around 2 a.m. As they arrived, they received addi- tional 911 calls reporting a per- son was shot, Atlanta police homicide commander Lt. Germain Dearlove told The Atlanta Journal-constitution from the scene.

The officers canvassed the building and saw two peo- ple in the back of the park- ing deck, including a man with a gunshot wound. They were both detained before officers found the victim, a 30-year-old man, dead inside his apartment, Dearlove said.

“The preliminary investigation shows that this is going to be a robbery with a nexus to narcotics involvement,” he said.

The name of the man killed was not available early Friday afternoon, pending notification of family members, according to the Fulton County medical examiner.

The two suspects were identified as Christopher Cyprian, 40, and Jameka Bag

nerise, 44. Both have been charged with murder and armed robbery, according to police.

Cyprian was injured in the shooting and underwent surgery early Friday at Grady Memorial Hospital, police said. Bagnerise was interviewed at police headquarters and arrested.

Dearlove said homicide investigators were working to collect witness statements and evidence from the victim’s apartment. They had recovered one weapon from the scene Friday.

The shooting was the second along Lenox Road in a matter of hours, according to police.

In an unrelated incident Thursday, a 40-yearold woman was shot in the abdomen during an altercation just before 8 p.m. at the Lenox Place apartments at 2572 Lenox Road, police said. The woman, whose name was not released, was alert when taken to the hospital.

Friday’s deadly shooting comes two months after a triple shooting in the 2200 block of Peachtree Road left 23-year-old Artez Benton of Scottdale dead. Music executive Chaka Zulu was injured in that shooting.