By Christian Boone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Yuhanna Williams was still clutching a knife when a Rockdale County sheriff’s deputy encountered the Covington man’s body Saturday night in an Ingles parking lot. Williams’ shooter stood nearby.
“This guy tried to rob me and I shot him,” Ryan Moore told the deputy.
In metro Atlanta, this is happening a lot: citizens fighting back when threatened with crime.
For Moore, identified as a 23-year-old Georgia Tech alumnus by other media outlets, the outcome was deadly. Williams, 30, was shot in the head and couldn’t be revived by an emergency crew. An alleged accomplice escaped on foot. Williams had been in and out of jail in Rockdale, serving time for everything from simple battery to selling marijuana near a public school.
Moore, who faces no charges, has emerged as an Internet hero to many, drawing several supportive comments for taking the law into his own hands.
At least six other similar shooting incidents have been reported around the metro area this year, and, in each case, the gun owner was not charged:
- A week before the Ingles shooting, a clerk at a Cobb County liquor store exchanged gunfire with two would-be robbers, killing one.
- A Stone Mountain barber victimized by a string of burglaries shot one of two would-be thieves, holding the wounded robber at gunpoint until police arrived.
- The owner of West End Tattoo parlor in Atlanta shot at three armed intruders, killing one and causing the others to flee.
- A DeKalb homeowner shot two burglars, killing one.
- Three intruders were confronted by a Decatur homeowner who heard them kicking in his back door. All three young men, one of whom had been shot in the thigh, were captured by police.
- With his two children asleep in their rooms, an Ellenwood father confronted three armed men, killing one and causing the others to flee on foot.
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution