Outside a Buckhead bar on the night of Oct. 11, Linton Blackwell was shot and killed by Gerald Walker, an off-duty Atlanta police officer.
Since the shooting, Blackwell’s family and friends have been trying to piece together what happened the night the father of twin girls was killed and why the officer decided to use lethal force.
“This [has] devastated our family,” Jimmy Hill, Blackwell’s cousin, told Capital B Atlanta. “They never did say he pointed a weapon at that officer.”
While the family seeks answers, Walker has been placed on Force Usage Review Assignment during the investigation led by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Though it isn’t a disciplinary action, officers on this assignment are not allowed to work extra jobs. They do however retain their badge, police identification and are provided with a service weapon.
Gerald Walker’s disciplinary history
Capital B Atlanta obtained a copy of Walker’s disciplinary history from APD through an open-records request.
The records show seven total work rule violations filed against Walker, who joined the department in 2023. Six of those charges were upheld after an investigation.
Walker remains in a probationary period — what the department calls an active reckoning period — in connection with four complaints: Three are related to APD’s standard operating procedures around body-worn cameras, and one is related to standard arrest procedures.
The length of the reckoning period is determined by the category of the violation, which ranges from A, the lowest severity, to D, the highest. Walker has one category A violation, which has a one-year reckoning period, and three category B violations, which have a three-year reckoning period.
During the active reckoning period, if an officer repeats or makes a similar violation, it is increased to the next category, which carries a longer reckoning period and potentially more serious disciplinary consequences.
The Atlanta Police Department has not commented on the shooting but confirmed to Capital B Atlanta that there is an active internal affairs investigation into the Oct. 11 shooting.
The shooting
According to preliminary reports by the Atlanta Police Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Walker was working an off-duty job nearby when he responded to a request for security assistance at the bar, 5 Paces Inn, due to an argument that had broken out involving Blackwell.
The GBI statement said Walker observed Blackwell enter his car in the parking lot behind the bar, grab something, and put it in the waistband at the small of his back. Walker then gave Blackwell commands related to a gun before he opened fire.
The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s report said the 44-year-old father and local rapper, who performed as B Green, had approximately 17 gunshot wounds, all in the back. Blackwell was pronounced dead at the scene. The officer was not injured.
“They say he stuck [something] in his back. So if he stuck it in his back, why did you shoot him that many times? Why did you even shoot him if nothing was aimed at you?” Hill questioned.
Blackwell’s friend, William Stanley, who went to the bar with him that night, told Capital B Atlanta that Walker was working the door at 5 Paces Inn and patted him and Blackwell down before they entered the bar that night.
Stanley said it was his first time at the bar but recalled Walker and Blackwell speaking to each other like they had met before. Once they entered the bar, he and Blackwell split up, and he said he wasn’t with him again until the argument.
“When the altercation went down … I went over there to break it up and [the officer] was right there with me breaking it up,” he said.
Stanley said that when he eventually walked around the back of the building to where he and Blackwell had parked, that’s when the shooting began.
“When I bent the corner … I saw BG. [He looked] like he was trying to head back into the establishment, but the dude was already shooting him — he had already shot him over five or six times at that point.”
The medical examiner’s report documented two bullet wounds in the right upper back, one in the buttocks, and 14 in the middle and lower back.
Blackwell’s manner of death on the night of Oct. 11 was officially ruled a homicide.
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