FINANCE
WELLNESS
YOUTH
Proponents of Stone Mountain’s Community Improvement District had plenty to celebrate at a kickoff event on Sept. 15. 6
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and advocates are working hard to spread the word about breast health. 9
Nature photographer Dudley Edmondson shows a young camper how to light a campfire during Camping 101 at Georgia’s Fort Mountain State Park. 13
Community improvements
Focus on breast cancer
Outdoor classroom
EAST ATLANTA • DECATUR • STONE MOUNTAIN • LITHONIA • AVONDALE ESTATES • CLARKSTON • ELLENWOOD • PINE LAKE • REDAN • SCOTTDALE • TUCKER
Copyright © 2011 CrossRoadsNews, Inc.
October 8, 2011
Civil Rights Icon Mourned The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth March 18, 1922 – Oct. 5, 2011
www.crossroadsnews.com
Volume 17, Number 23
$4 million in HOST funds to go to cities By Mary Swint
The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who was bombed, sprayed with fire hoses, beaten and repeatedly arrested in the fight for civil rights, died Oct. 5 in Birmingham, Ala. He was 89. A former truck driver who studied religion at night, Shuttlesworth became pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953. He was an outspoken leader in the fight for racial equality and was responsible for inviting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Birmingham in the 1960s at a pivotal point
DeKalb County has $4 million less than expected for transportation infrastructure improvements this year and has to delay half of the 16 projects that were slated for funding by its Homestead Option Sales Tax. Ted Rhinehart, the county’s chief operating officer for infrastructure, told the Board of Commissioners’ Planning, Economic Development and Public Works Committee on Oct. 4 that only $8.2 million of the $12.2 million from HOST revenue collected in 2010 would be available to the county. The rest will go to its cities after a ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court in July. Rhinehart recommended reducing funding by $4 million for
Please see SHUTTLESWORTH, page 5
Please see HOST, page 5
Officer in fatal crash ordered to surrender Families seek answers in wreck that killed two By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
The last time Devron Cunningham spoke to his mother, Shelley Scott Amos, it was around 5 p.m. on Feb. 19. He was at their Decatur home on the Internet and her printer was acting up. “I called her and she walked me through it,” he said. Later that evening, he went to DaVido’s 375 Pizza and got her some of those fried chicken wings she loved so much. While he waited for her to come home, he nodded off on the living room couch. “Around 10 p.m., I thought I heard someone, but it wasn’t her,” he recalled Wednesday. He tried her telephone and it went to her voice-mail, but he thought nothing of it. And even though it was getting late, he said he wasn’t worried because she was out with Cheryl Blount Burton, her best friend of more than 20 years. The two became friends when his younger brother, Kashif Hinston, was in Little League. “They were like sisters in so many words,” Cunningham said. “They would go to parties together. They went to cookouts together. They consoled each other on their marriages. They were close.” Cunningham said he must have nodded off again because when the doorbell rang, it was past midnight. On his front step was what turned out to be a plainclothes DeKalb Police officer. His unmarked police cruiser was sitting on the street. The man asked him if Shelley Amos had been in an accident. “I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ”
Devron Cunningham (above, center) hired lawyers Mawuli “Mel” Davis (left) and Robert Bozeman after his mother, Shelley Amos (far left), and friend Cheryl Burton were killed in February.
Cunningham said. “He finally came out and said it. When he said she didn’t make it, I dropped to my knees right there on the floor.” Later, Cunningham found out that Burton, who was driving the car, was also dead, and that the police report said she had run a red light.
the county to preserve the cruiser’s black box, which records information about the car’s operations. Robert Bozeman, who co-owns the firm with Mawuli “Mel” Davis, took the lead on the case. He said they hired a consultant to reconstruct the accident scene. “My expert disagreed with the police report,” he said. “You could see where the impact occurred and how far the car was crushed and thrown. It ended up across the street on a pole. You could not throw a car that far at 35 miles per hour.” Bozeman said that the county, claiming it is part of an ongoing investigation, did not release the contents of the black box, but by June, it had settled the case for the maximum insurance benefit. That same month, Kristina Hambie the county fired Kristina Hambie, the officer who was driving the car. At the time of the accident, Hambie, 25, was on duty but was not on an emergency call and did not have her blue lights on. It has been reported that Hambie, who had been with the department for three years, was on her lunch break. On Oct. 4, a DeKalb grand jury indicted her on two counts of vehicular homicide in the first degree, reckless driving, and violation of oath by a public officer. The indictment says that Hambie was traveling above the posted speed limit when her police cruiser slammed into the car driven by Burton as it pulled into the intersection of Covington Highway and Kensington Road in Avondale Estates. Amos, 56, was in the front passenger seat of the car. She died on the spot. Burton, 51, who lived in Stone Mountain, was pronounced dead at DeKalb Medical. Both women had just left an Avondale thrift store where they had been shopping.
When he saw the mangled wreckage of the white Nissan Ultima, Cunningham said he immediately had his doubts. “The car looked like you had stepped on a soda can,” he said. “For the car to be like that, the officer had to be speeding.” Cunningham hired the Decatur law firm of Davis Bozeman, which immediately asked Please see ACCIDENT, page 5