CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — It was an emotional day in court as the mother of two kids killed in a gang-retaliation shooting explained what happened the night of the crime.
Police said 11-year-old Tatiyana Coates and her brother, 15-year-old Daveon Coates, were shot to death Oct. 22, 2016, in a gang-retaliation killing that missed its target.
According to police, the suspects aimed to retaliate against a 15-year-old named DeAndre Mitchell, who had stolen guns from their gang. The gun believed to have been used in the slayings was found in Tennessee after a gang-related shootout that likely involved the shooter, police said.
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Eight alleged gang members are charged in the attack, including a former DeKalb County elementary school teacher who now faces murder charges.
On Tuesday, just one of those suspects, Jamon Bynam, was on trial. Prosecutors say Bynam was one of the men who stormed the home full of children, looking for Mitchell but the teen wasn’t there.
“I heard gunshots. I started to wake up then I got up, heard a few more, and then I hid and then two more came back through the room," said Brandon Coates.
Coates was just 16 the night of the shootings that killed his brother and sister.
His family and prosecutors requested we blur his face during his testimony in the trial.
“All you hear in that house is …(bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang)," he said.
Clayton County police detective Mashaun Montgomery described how he found Daveon Coates lying face down, unresponsive and as he called it in, the other kids in the home had already made their way to Tatiyana’s room.
“One of the little boys was trying to wake his sister, but she wouldn’t wake up and that’s when I noticed, she was dead," Montgomery said.
The slain children’s mother, Teneika Brown, told the court she was at a club in Decatur when she got a frantic call from her other son inside the house and came home to a crime scene crawling with police.
“I went to the door, and they had told me to stay in the yard," she said.
Testimony resumes Wednesday.