By Joe Johnson
A convicted Athens gang member is being investigated as the suspected shooter of a man over two months ago at a Clayton County nightclub.
Jabari Uhuru Barnette, 22, of Park Ridge Drive has been in custody at the Barrow County Detention Center since July 14, when arrested for being in a car that led deputies on a high-speed chase while returning to Athens from the Rumors nightclub in Lake Park where a 39-year-old man from Rex, GA was shot, according to law enforcement reports and sources.
Barnette is said to belong to the EBK (Everybody Killa) street gang in Athens. At the time of his arrest he was on probation for aggravated assault and violating the state's anti-gang law.
When arrested in Barrow he was in a car that deputies chased after and used the PIT maneuver to disable, because the Honda Accord had been speeding as much as 120 mph, according to a Barrow sheriff’s report.
The Honda and a Sig Sauer semiautomatic pistol that was thrown from the Honda were both reported to have been stolen in Athens.
Burnette and another of the car’s occupants, Darious Trinell Thrasher of Hallmark Estates in Athens and said to be an EBK gang associate, were both charged with possession of a firearm with an altered serial number, possession of a firearm in the commission of a crime, and felony marijuana possession, the Barrow County Sheriff's Office said.
According to an investigator, when being questioned about an unrelated Athens homicide another of the Honda’s five occupants identified Burnette as the gunman in the Forest Park shooting. Forest Park PD subsequently obtained warrants charging him with aggravated assault.
Burnette and Thasher this week continued to be locked up without bail in Barrow County.