MARTA murder suspects' mom: "He said he didn't mean to do it."ShareThisPrint E-mail .By Marcus K. Garner
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The mother of the East Point MARTA station murder suspect said the shooting death wasn't deliberate.
Fulton County Sheriff's Office Broderick Smith.
(Note that well known arrogant nigger look)
The East Point MARTA station was reopened to riders Thursday morning.
Anthony Beavers was shot dead at East Point MARTA station.
."He said he was sorry," Vonda Smith told the AJC Friday, a day after talking to her son Broderick Smith from the Fulton County jail. "He said he didn't mean to do it."
The 20-year-old suspect in a fatal shooting of a 19-year-old chess champion at the East Point MARTA station waived his first appearance before a judge in a courtroom at the Fulton County Jail Friday.
His mother said Broderick Smith was supposed to start a new job today with a moving company.
His mother and friends suspected that peer pressure led to the actions he is accused of.
"He's not a violent person," said Vonda Smith, admitting she didn't know of the 2009 Banneker High School grad ever owning a gun."It was just those boys he was hanging with out in East Point. Wednesday night he was with his so-called friends."
Smith was arrested late Thursday afternoon at his mother’s apartment in the Westlake area of Fulton County. He is charged with murdering Anthony Beavers Wednesday night after what has been reported as a robbery attempt.
“There is no question in my mind that he is the shooter,” MARTA Police Chief Wanda Dunham told reporters at a press conference Thursday. Police have not recovered the weapon used in the shooting.
Just before Dunham spoke, three police officers in Army-green uniforms and body armor unloaded a bound and shackled Smith from the floor of a white van and escorted him into MARTA police headquarters.
The murder suspect was silent, wearing jeans and a camouflage thermal shirt, his head covered with a black jacket, as he was walked past reporters.
“We had video footage right away,” Dunham said. “We had a name within five hours.”
At the time of the shooting, Smith was already serving probation for crimes committed in 2006 and 2008, including two charges of theft by receiving a stolen car, criminal damage to property and obstruction.
He is now charged with murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony for Beaver’s death.
Dunham credited tipsters and witnesses from the scene of the incident for helping identify Smith in Beaver’s shooting.
Televised reports suggest the victim was shot because he refused to turn over his new touchscreen cellphone in a robbery attempt, but officials at the press conference said a motive for the shooting is not yet confirmed.
Beavers, a 2008 Jonesboro High School graduate, was a chess champion and “brilliant” student, a former teacher said Thursday.
Math teacher Mark McPherson, faculty sponsor of the school’s chess team, said Beavers was “liked by everyone here at the school. He really didn’t seem to make any enemies that I knew of.”
He said Beavers “had an unusual sense of humor that usually had an ability to break up an overly serious mood.”
At last year’s Clayton County chess tournament, Beavers took first place in the adult division.
“He did very well, knocking out our top contenders,” McPherson said.
“He was very brilliant when it came to academics,” McPherson said. “He seemed to get through his math classes with very little effort.”
McPherson said he felt “abject shock” Thursday morning when he learned of the shooting. “I think we’re all pretty much in shock.”
The shooting occurred at about 10:40 p.m. Wednesday near an elevator at the south end of the station.
Beavers was on the southbound side of the center train platform when two shots were fired, said a passenger who called the AJC. That side of the platform was cordoned off with crime scene tape when an AJC reporter arrived.
Riders hit the ground to avoid gunfire, witnesses said.
Immediately after the shooting, police questioned a man believed to be a witness.
Around 1 a.m., four MARTA police patrol cars sped away from the station going south on Main Street, before stopping roughly a mile away and returning minutes later.
Assistant MARTA Police Chief Joseph Dorsey said police thought they’d found a suspect.
“There was a possible (suspect) location, but it turned out to be negative,” he said.
The station is equipped with surveillance cameras, but Dorsey wouldn’t indicate how or if video footage or information from the MARTA Breeze passes were being used to help the investigation.
He said there hadn’t been an incident this serious at a MARTA station in four years.
Atlanta police crime scene investigators were called to process the crime scene, Dorsey said.
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/mart...ss_news_128746





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