Family says 12-year-old shot to death after leaving home to play football with friends

ATLANTA — Family members say a 12-year-old found shot to death in Fulton County Wednesday had left home the day before to go play football with a friend.

David Mack was found shot multiple times on Shirley Street just before 2 p.m. in the woods behind a vacant house.

Family members told Channel 2′s Steve Gehlbach that they found Mack’s body just a quarter of a mile from his house.

The family said they have no idea who Mack was with who would kill him.

HIs grandmother, Glenda Mack, said her grandson was always talking and smiling.

“He was just a good boy,” Glenda Mack said. “He said, ‘Grandma, I’m going up to my friend’s house.’”

Glenda Mack said David left around 3 p.m. Tuesday to go play football.

When he hadn’t gotten home by sundown, they got worried and called police.

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They reported him missing and officers looked in the area and canvassed neighbors, but they couldn’t find the boy.

Neighbors along Shirley Street told Channel 2 Action News they heard two burst of rapid gunshots coming from a wooded area along a concrete drainage creek that night.

“Just like, ‘du, du, du, du.’ And then like, silence, and not even five seconds (later), ‘du, du, du, du,’” a neighbor said.

So far, police have not confirmed that anyone called in to report a shooting, and officers never looked there.

The next afternoon, Mack’s father, brother and sister spotted the boy’s body along the creek bank.

His father ran up to him.

“And he knew automatically he was gone,” Glenda Mack said.

The family thinks he met up with someone, but don’t know who it was or why that person would want the 12-year-old dead.

“He said, Love you, Grandma’,” Glenda Mack said. “And I said, ‘Love you, too.’ And that was the last thing I said to him.”

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Missing 12-year-old boy found dead in southwest Atlanta Police say they arrived on the scene on the 1900 block of Shirly Street just before 2 p.m. and found the boy, who had been shot multiple times.