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An 8-year-old girl died in the backseat of her mother’s Jeep on the Fourth of July, cut down by gunfire near the same Atlanta intersection where Rayshard Brooks was killed weeks earlier.
Secoriea Turner was riding with her mother, Charmaine Turner, and a family friend on the night of July 4, 2020, when their Jeep Cherokee was raked with bullets near University Avenue and Pryor Road in southwest Atlanta. The block sits just steps from the burned-out Wendy’s where Brooks died in an officer-involved shooting weeks before, an area that protesters and armed individuals had since turned into a barricaded, self-declared autonomous zone. Secoriea was rushed to Atlanta Medical Center but did not survive.
- Secoriea Turner, 8, was shot while her mother’s Jeep attempted to turn around or get past an unauthorized roadblock set up by armed occupiers of the protest zone; at least two shooters opened fire on the vehicle.
- Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms held an emotional press conference with Secoriea’s parents on July 5, saying “there wasn’t just one shooter, there were at least two shooters,” and Atlanta police offered a reward that grew from $10,000 to $20,000 for information leading to arrests.
- Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency and authorized up to 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops, while city officials moved to clear the Wendy’s site after a holiday weekend in which dozens more were shot across Atlanta.
The Shooting on Pryor Road
Investigators say the Jeep Cherokee was navigating the barricaded stretch near the torched Wendy’s location when it either attempted to turn around or bypass a makeshift roadblock that armed individuals had erected as part of the occupied protest zone. Gunfire tore into the vehicle from at least two shooters, striking Secoriea in the backseat. Charmaine Turner and the adult friend in the car were not reported injured; Secoriea was pronounced dead after being taken to Atlanta Medical Center.
The location carried its own weight in the city’s recent history. Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by Atlanta police in that Wendy’s parking lot weeks earlier, and the restaurant was later burned. In the aftermath, protesters and armed self-appointed security had occupied the surrounding blocks much the way demonstrators had taken over Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, setting up checkpoints that civilian traffic had to navigate at its own risk.
Bottoms and the Turner Family Speak Out
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms appeared alongside Secoriea’s grieving parents on July 5 in a press conference that quickly went viral for its rawness. “You shot and killed a baby,” Bottoms said, addressing the shooters directly. “And there wasn’t just one shooter, there were at least two shooters… If you want people to take us seriously and you want us to appreciate that Black lives matter, then we have to think ourselves that our lives matter.”
“They say Black lives matter. You killed your own.” — Secoriya Williamson, Secoriea Turner’s father
Williamson’s line landed as the rawest moment of the news conference, a father processing his daughter’s death at the hands of people occupying ground that had been claimed in the name of protecting Black lives. Charmaine Turner sat beside him as Bottoms pressed the point that no cause justifies gunning down a child in a passing car.
State Response and the Manhunt
The shooting landed in the middle of an already violent holiday weekend, one that echoed the surge of gun violence hitting other major cities that summer, including the mass shootings that left 16 dead and 47 wounded in Chicago over a comparable stretch. Atlanta police opened a manhunt for the shooters and initially posted a $10,000 reward, later raising it to $20,000 as leads came in. City officials moved to clear the occupied zone around the Wendy’s site in the days that followed, dismantling the barricades that had blocked the road where Secoriea was killed.
Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency and authorized the deployment of up to 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops to protect state property amid the unrest. The combination of the child’s death, the mayor’s public appeal, and the governor’s emergency order marked a turning point in how Atlanta and Georgia officials treated the occupied protest zones that had spread across the country that summer.
Atlanta police have not announced an arrest in Secoriea Turner’s killing. The $20,000 reward remains on the table, and the manhunt for the shooters who fired on that Jeep Cherokee is still open.
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