Violet Lambert, a 55-year- old black mother, was shot at least once in the eye, outside Macy’s department store at Atlanta’s Cumberland Mall on Monday, according to Cobb County, Ga., police.
Police say triggerman Danny Ray Brown, 59, shot multiple times at a good Samaritan running to help Lambert, before calmly leaving the scene.
Witnesses state that Lambert and Brown were arguing moments before the shooting and in statements described Brown as calm and that it “looked like something he did every day” according to multiple sources.
Brown and the vehicle he was driving were tracked to East Point, Ga., a predominately black city in the metro Atlanta area 15 miles away.
At some point Brown called the victim’s son and said, “’I messed up. I just shot your momma.” He also stated that he was going to kill himself. Detectives found Brown with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Brown was a janitor and worked with Lambert at Friendship Tower Apartments in Atlanta.
According to a family friend, Kim Monroe, Brown had romantic feelings for the victim but his romantic advances were never returned and Brown found out she was seeing another man.
