ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has obtained bodycam video and evidence photos that are helping us piece together how prosecutors got a life sentence for a man they say waged a 12-day reign of terror in a Southeast Atlanta neighborhood.
The lead prosecutor on the case from the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office said Drashawn Mitchell was an admitted gang member, though he says he has now quit the gang, and the jury deadlocked on gang charges.
Investigators said Mitchell was the man behind three shootings in less than two weeks in the same neighborhood.
“Mr. Mitchell was just really a menace to society,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said.
That reign of terror ended with the killing of Willie Henderson III, but Mitchell, a 60 Crips gang member.
Mitchell had a troubled history, with six prior felony convictions, four of which were before his Spring 2022 shooting spree.
Now, he is facing thousands of days in prison after being convicted of felony murder.
“Judge Emerson sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole, plus 91 years, which is the maximum that he could have received for the charges he was found guilty on,” Fulton County senior assistant district attorney Amanda Green said.
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Additional charges against Mitchell stem from the shooting of another man four times in the incident on April 5, 2022, in which Henderson died.
Mitchell also shot a gun to frighten a teenage girlfriend who was not struck on March 25, and was charged in a similar incident with another girlfriend on April 1, 2022.
“We will be appealing. He believes he was wrongfully convicted, and so we will be filing a motion for a new trial within the statutory time period of 30 days, and so that should be filed shortly,” Mitchell’s defense attorney Tim Cook said.
Green said the jury deadlocked on a murder charge involving Henderson and on numerous gang counts, even though Mitchell admitted on the stand that he was a gang member at the time.
“He told the jury that in the neighborhood that he grew up, there was peer pressure from a very early age to align yourself with people who would protect you from others. This was a dog-eat-dog world, it was unfortunate,” Cook said.
“This was a ballistics case. Ballistics is what solved this homicide. The March 25th incident, the casings that were collected at that incident matched the casings that were collected at the homicide scene,” Green said
Green said in the second incident, where Mitchell shot at a girlfriend, Atlanta police chased him on foot and did not catch him, but were able to identify him.
“It was a self-defense case,” Cook said.
Cook said Mitchell maintains Henderson had shot at him earlier, and Mitchell was afraid he and the man with him were about to be shot at again.
“The fact that your client was steeped in the gang culture, do you think that made him more likely to turn to guns to use during a dispute?” Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne asked Cook.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Cook said.
“Gang members are much more likely to one. Do crime at all. And certainly to do more violent crime,” Willis said.
Green said Mitchell testified someone told him Henderson had fired at him earlier, and he went to investigate, and that another person with him also fired when they confronted Henderson.
She said both Henderson and the other man, who was shot but survived, had guns.
She said Mitchell testified that he recently quit the gang.
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