An Athens-Clarke County grand jury has indicted four members of a local street gang in the fatal shooting of a 3-year-old boy, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced Wednesday.
Kyron Santino Zarco Smith was shot in the chest in March when a bullet came through his home at the Hallmark Mobile Home Park while he was watching television. His 9-year-old brother was wounded.
The indictment charges Julian Cubillos, Jayden Brown, Dakious Echols, and Desmontrez Mathis with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and violation of the Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act.
The four are members of the gang “Everybody Eats,” or “EBE.” They are accused of going to the mobile home park to target a rival gang in order to maintain and increase their status within EBE.
Gang violence in Georgia is disproportionately victimizing lower-income minorities, Carr said Wednesday during a news conference at the state Capitol.
“All Georgians, no matter where they live, deserve to be safe,” he said.
The attorney general’s Gang Prosecution Unit worked on the case in partnership with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the FBI’s Atlanta office and the bureau’s Athens-area Middle Georgia Safe Streets Gang Task Force.
“Criminal street gangs continue to devastate communities and harm innocent victims,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said. “The GBI is dedicated to holding dangerous gang members accountable for their crimes.”
Since its creation nearly two years ago, Carr’s Gang Prosecution Unit has worked with Athens-Clarke police to indict 21 suspects in nine separate cases. Most are believed to involve an ongoing conflict between EBE and the Red Tape Gang.
The defendants are charged in connection with five shootings that took place in Athens between April 2022 and March of this year, four of which were fatal.
