At a balloon release in DeKalb Memorial Park last week, dozens of friends and family members gathered to remember Linton Blackwell, a man they said would do anything for his family, especially his twin daughters.
“He’s an angel gone too soon, but he will watch over us,” Faith Harper, his aunt, told Capital B Atlanta during the remembrance Thursday evening.
Blackwell’s family is still reeling after losing the 44-year-old rapper and entrepreneur in a fatal shooting the night of Oct. 11 by an off-duty Atlanta police officer under what they believe are questionable circumstances.
Jimmy Evans, Blackwell’s cousin and security guard when he performed in nightclubs under his stage name B Green, told Capital B Atlanta that Blackwell was shot multiple times.
Capital B Atlanta was unable to obtain a copy of the autopsy report while the investigation is ongoing.
According to a preliminary statement by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the off-duty officer was working a security job nearby when he responded to a request for assistance due to an argument at the bar 5 Paces Inn.
The GBI statement said the officer observed Blackwell grab something from his car he believed to be a firearm before Blackwell tried to reenter the bar from the rear parking lot. Following a number of verbal commands, the officer then opened fire.
Law enforcement who responded after the shooting reportedly found a handgun on the scene but did not say who it belonged to.
While the officer’s full name hasn’t been released, an Atlanta Police incident report obtained by Capital B Atlanta through an open records request referred to the shooter as officer G. Walker.
Blackwell was pronounced dead at the scene.
Marcus Harper remembered his cousin as one of his favorite rappers and someone who was always looking out for the family. In addition to his music, Blackwell also had a clothing line called Lil Vietnam, the nickname for East Lake Meadows, a former Atlanta public housing community where he was raised.
Like most of Atlanta’s public housing, East Lake Meadows was demolished in the late 1990s, and very few of the original residents returned when a mixed-income development was built in its place.
ABOVE: “He was a very respectful, kind, nice young man,” said Faith Harper, aunt of Linton Blackwell. “He’s an angel gone too soon, but he will watch over us.” BELOW: “He was very cordial, he loved his family, especially his daughters,” said Marcus Harper about his cousin Linton Blackwell. (Madeline Thigpen/Capital B)
“He carried our neighborhood on his back,” Evans told Capital B Atlanta. “He kept our neighborhood relevant through his music.”
Another Blackwell cousin, Jimmy Hill, who alerted Capital B Atlanta to the story, is no stranger to fighting for justice in police brutality cases. Earlier this year, a federal judge dropped the criminal charges against the Atlanta police officer who shot and killed his unarmed son Jimmy Atchison in 2019.
“This [has] devastated our family,” Hill said. “They never did say he pointed a weapon at that officer.”
Without more information from police surrounding what led to the shooting in Buckhead last Saturday, the family is left with more questions than answers about how a man they remember so fondly lost his life.
“He’d give you the shirt off his back. That’s the kind of man he was,” said Grady Blackwell. “He was my nephew, but I loved him like he was my child.”
