ATLANTA – A 14-year-old boy died after being shot at the Villages of Castleberry Hills apartments in southwest Atlanta on Wednesday evening.

One person has been detained.

What we know:

Officers were called just after 7 p.m. to the apartments located in the 500 block of Greensferry Avenue SW near Northside Drive. 

According to the Atlanta Police Department, officers found the teenager with at least one gunshot wound. 

He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition; investigators say he later died.

An individua was taken to police headquarters for questioning, though their specific involvement in the shooting remains unclear.

What they’re saying:

Witnesses at the scene described a heavy emergency response, seeing medics wheel the teenager out on a stretcher as investigators taped off the building. One neighbor, returning home to the active crime scene, expressed shock at the violence.

What we don’t know:

Police have not yet identified a suspect or a motive for the shooting. 

It remains unclear what led up to the gunfire or if the teenager was the intended target. 

Investigators have not announced any arrests, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin says a high-speed passenger rail line connecting Birmingham and Atlanta is not just a dream, but a possibility he believes is worth pursuing.

In a Jan. 8 essay titled “Let’s Go for a Walk, Birmingham,” Woodfin said he does not think it is unrealistic to imagine a fast and frequent rail connection between the two cities, calling it an achievable goal.

“I also don’t think it’s crazy to dream about a frequent and fast passenger rail connection from Birmingham to Atlanta,” Woodfin wrote. “We can achieve these things.”

The mayor tied that vision to the launch of a new citywide transportation effort known as the GoBHM Transportation Plan, a partnership between the city and the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority. The plan is aimed at expanding mobility options and improving public transportation across Birmingham, while also exploring long-term regional connections like passenger rail.

AL.com first reported on the initiative, noting that the GoBHM plan includes studying the possibility of a high-speed rail line linking Birmingham and Atlanta as part of a broader effort to make the city more walkable, bikeable, and transit-friendly.

Woodfin said funding would be the biggest challenge to turning the rail idea into reality. Speaking Tuesday, Jan. 13, after addressing the Kiwanis Club, the mayor said such a project would require cooperation across multiple sectors.

“It would take a state, federal, public, private partnership,” Woodfin said. “It takes a lot of money. We would like to see it. Think of the economic opportunity that would create. It would be beneficial.”

City leaders say the GoBHM plan will rely heavily on public input. Residents who live, work or regularly visit Birmingham are encouraged to participate by visiting letsgobhm.com, where the city will share updates and information about upcoming public meetings over the next year.

In an era of fast fashion, Guilty Party moves slow. Champ Hammett and Heath Ladnier launched the Grant Park boutique in 2023 based on a shared belief that clothes should get better with time. That guiding principle underscores every aspect of the store’s inventory, especially its cornerstone good: selvedge denim, the heavyweight jean fabric largely produced in Japan and long revered in denim cult circles.

Woven on vintage shuttle looms to create a dense weave and a clean “selv-edge,” or self-finished edge, which resists fraying, selvedge denim captures the ethos of Guilty Party. Here, you’ll find a rugged but refined selection of apparel inspired by traditional workwear, in a chummy, come-as-you-are atmosphere that reflects the punk rock world where Hammett and Ladnier came of age.

Guilty Party reads as menswear at first glance—and, yes, most customers are men—but the boutique welcomes all fashion-minded comers. “It really doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman; we don’t call ourselves a menswear store,” Ladnier says. “Our store is for anybody. But it’s not for everybody.” Whisk yourself inside while en route to nearby Ria’s Bluebird or Little Tart Bakeshop, and you’ll be welcomed with open arms. Learn a litany about premium fabrics and apparel construction, then leave feeling like one of the initiated.

Hammett, a Georgia native, discovered selvedge while touring the United States with hardcore punk band Foundation in the early aughts, then sought every specialty shop he could find. (The name Guilty Party nods to a 2017 song by The National, and to Hammett’s guilt over dragging bandmates—and, later, his wife—to denim shops from city to city.) He met Ladnier, a fellow punk rocker hailing from Mississippi, through their real-estate careers, and the two eventually turned a mutual obsession into the selvedge-centric shop they felt Atlanta was missing.

The store carries several popular Japanese selvedge brands, including Iron Heart, which draws denim heads from around the region; Guilty Party is the only brick-and-mortar shop selling them in a roughly nine-hour radius. Selvedge jeans, manufactured with methods the mainstream industry abandoned decades ago, soften with wear, developing creases and fades unique to each owner. “The more you live your life in them, the better they get, and the more they look like you,” Hammett says. The store’s fitting process is individualized, and hemming is completed in-house using a chain-stitch machine, an old-school tool—and the only one of its kind in Georgia—that preserves a puckered texture and leads to uneven fading, both signature characteristics of well-altered denim.

Beyond jeans, the selection leans classic utility: twill pants in earth tones, railroad-stripe chore coats, organic-cotton flannels, and knits from Germany and Peru. Guilty Party is also the spot for hard-to-find footwear, such as Red Wing and Alden, the Massachusetts shoemaker that made the boots Harrison Ford was famously shod in for Indiana Jones. The goods on offer, Ladnier says, are built for everyday use, even if the day gets rugged.

“We tell people not to baby these clothes,” he says. “You can wear these pieces out to eat on Saturday night, but you can also go fix a carburetor.”

This article appears in our January 2026 issue.

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