Police said the child was shot three times in the arm as gunfire hit several units on Kimberly Way before dawn Thursday.
ATLANTA, Ga. — A 7-year-old boy was shot multiple times early Thursday inside a southwest Atlanta apartment while gunfire tore through several units at a complex on Kimberly Way, police said, sending the child to the hospital and setting off a broad search for evidence.
Police said the boy was stable after being struck three times in the arm, a detail that quickly made the shooting one of the city’s most alarming overnight crime scenes. Investigators said the child was inside his home when the shots were fired and that the damage across the property suggested a drive-by attack. By sunrise, officers had not announced any arrests, named any suspects or released a vehicle description, leaving residents with fresh questions about who opened fire and why.
Officers were called to the apartment complex in the 1300 block of Kimberly Way shortly after 1:30 a.m. to just before 2 a.m., according to local reports that cited Atlanta police. When they arrived, they found the child hurt inside an apartment. Paramedics rushed him to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where officers said he was expected to recover. Investigators later said several apartments had also been struck by bullets. Police stretched crime-scene tape across a large section of the complex and part of the nearby roadway as detectives and evidence technicians worked through the dark, then into the morning. Atlanta police said they were reviewing surveillance video from the area as they tried to piece together the moments before the gunfire. The department had not said by Thursday morning whether the child or anyone in the apartment was believed to be the intended target.
The known details remained limited, but several points were clear by daybreak. Police said the gunfire appeared to come from outside the apartment where the child was inside his home. Officers also said the pattern of damage across multiple units pointed them toward the possibility of a drive-by shooting. One local report said dozens of shell casings were found at the scene, a sign of how much gunfire investigators believe was unleashed in a residential area where families were sleeping. That helped explain the size of the police perimeter and the amount of evidence work underway outside the complex. Authorities did not publicly identify the child, did not say whether any other residents were injured and did not explain what may have led up to the shooting. They also had not said whether security cameras captured the vehicle or the shooter, though police confirmed they were combing through video as part of the inquiry.
The shooting also renewed attention on the apartment complex, identified in local coverage as Ashley Cascade Apartments near Cascade Road. The property has appeared in earlier crime reports. In February 2024, a 3-year-old was wounded by gunfire at the same complex. Days later, police responded to another shooting there that injured an adult man. More recently, Atlanta police sought several armed suspects after a March 16, 2026, shooting at the same apartment complex that injured a 19-year-old woman and damaged a building and a vehicle. That history does not establish who was behind Thursday’s gunfire, but it does add context to why residents and investigators were treating the latest case with urgency. Each of those incidents involved gunfire in a place where children and other residents live, sleep and move through shared courtyards, parking areas and hallways.
As of Thursday morning, the case remained in the investigative stage. Police had not announced charges, arrests or warrants tied to the child’s shooting. Detectives were still processing the scene, collecting physical evidence and trying to determine the path of the bullets and the position of the shooter or shooters. The next likely steps include a review of surveillance footage, interviews with residents and witnesses, and ballistic testing on shell casings and any projectiles recovered from the apartments. Investigators will also work to determine whether the shooting is connected to any earlier violence at or near the complex. Public briefings later in the day could bring more detail on the child’s condition, the number of units hit and whether officers have identified a suspect vehicle. For now, police have described the investigation as active and have said only that no suspect information was ready for release.
By Thursday morning, the physical signs of the shooting were hard to miss. Sections of the complex were sealed off while detectives moved between buildings and parking areas. Residents waking up for work and school stepped around police tape and looked toward damaged units as officers documented the scene. The child’s age sharpened the shock around the case. Even in a city that sees frequent overnight gun violence, police reports of a 7-year-old hit inside a home carry a different weight because they cut into the sense of safety that homes are supposed to provide. Officials kept their public comments narrow, focusing on the child’s condition, the likely drive-by nature of the shooting and the search for video and other evidence. Until police release more, the central questions remain unanswered: who fired, who they were aiming at, and what led them to open fire into an occupied apartment complex.
Thursday’s update left the boy hospitalized but stable, the crime scene active and the search for suspects unresolved. The next milestone is expected to be a fuller police update after detectives finish processing evidence and reviewing surveillance footage from the Kimberly Way complex.
Author note: Last updated April 2, 2026.