Six-year-old Jayla McDaniel, 10-year-old Arthur Patterson, and 14-year-old Amiya Patterson were last seen by their mother at the park near their home in northwest Atlanta.
ATLANTA – Police are searching for three children who disappeared in northwest Atlanta Thursday night.
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Officials say 6-year-old Jayla McDaniel, 10-year-old Arthur Patterson, and 14-year-old Amiya Patterson were last seen by their mother around 3 p.m. Thursday at the park near their home on the 2200 block of Perry Blvd NW.
The three siblings were seen by surveillance cameras around 4:20 p.m. near the Circle K convenience store on the 1600 block of Hollywood Road. In the photo provided by police, the three children are walking down the sidewalk with another unknown child.
Surveillance footage of the last time Jayla McDaniel, Arthur Patterson, and Amiya Patterson were seen. (Atlanta Police Department)
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Police have been searching for hours for Jayla, Author, and Amiya, but so far haven’t said if they have any leads as to where the three could be.
Family members sent out a call on FOX 5 begging the siblings to come back home.
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“If y’all out there and you see us on the TV, please just come home,” the children’s grandmother Kim Patterson said. “We’re worried about you guys and we don’t know where you’re at. Please just come home.”
Arthur and Amiya Patterson (Atlanta Police Department)
Six-year-old Jayla is described as being 4-feet-6-inches tall with a weight of 90 pounds. She has black braided hair with black beads and was last known to be wearing a pink shirt and blue jean shorts.
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Arthur, 10, was last seen wearing pajama pants of an unknown color. Police described him as being 5-feet-4-inches tall with a weight of around 114 pounds.
The oldest sibling, 14-year-old Amiya, is 5-feet-7-inches tall with a weight of 145 pounds. Police say she has black braided hair and was wearing a crop top.
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If you have any information that can help police find the three critical missing children, call 911, the Atlanta Police Department’s Special Victim’s Unit at (404) 546-4260, or Crime Stoppers at (404) 577 – TIPS (8477).
If you’ve walked through Bold Monk Brewing, Ladybird, or other Atlanta hotspots recently, you might have noticed something unusual: a group of people independently reading in collective silence. Stumbling upon a Silent Book Club event might seem unnerving without context, but the meetup is an increasingly popular way for people to read, socialize, and explore Atlanta.
Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Silent Book Club has more than 500 chapters in 50 countries, including several across Georgia. Unlike a traditional book club, readers are encouraged to bring their own reading material and read it independently for an hour. That time is sandwiched between two socialization periods. It’s a no-pressure way to get reading done, meet new friends, and get out in the community. The concept is gaining traction on social media, with the Atlanta chapter alone racking up over 18,000 Instagram followers.
“I wanted to bring together a community of readers to reinvest in Atlanta,” says Sophia Griesenauer, the volunteer founder and leader of the Atlanta chapter who found the concept via social media. She began the chapter in November 2023 and has held meet-ups three times a month since. Typically, the Sunday schedule involves an “arrive and settle” period that lasts about 30 minutes, then a one-hour block for independent reading, followed by an hour of optional socializing. There are no reservations required to participate.
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For Griesenauer, who has a corporate job at Home Depot in corporate communications, it’s been interesting to watch the psychology at play during the meetups. “I think there’s a lot to be said about doing something collective while also doing something individually,” she says. “Someone recently called it parallel play of the soul, and I think that’s what we’re doing, bringing people together to provide an opportunity to engage if they’d like, but also providing a safe, dedicated space to get some reading done.”
Atlanta’s Silent Book Club
Photograph by Sophia Griesenauer
Griesenauer emphasizes you can read anything you like, any way you like. People read books, self-help books, newspapers, listen to audiobooks, flip through Kindles, and more. “It’s whatever works for you,” she says. “We had someone come to a meetup with an audiobook, and then when the silent reading hour was over she pulled out her headphones and started crocheting.”
Meetups occur in some of Atlanta’s popular venues, such as the James Room, Dancing Goats Coffee, and the Daily. As the group has gotten larger, Griesenauer has sought out bigger spaces. Her goal with each venue is to help people find new places outside their comfort spots and expose them to places in the community they might not have considered otherwise. She’s also adding smaller pop-up style meet-ups for more intimate gatherings, including a partnership with the Atlanta History Center to do an author talk and silent reading, and Sweat EXT at Ponce City Market to do a workout and silent reading.
In May, the group will meet at Atlanta Dairies, Steady Hand Beer Co., and Elsewhere Brewing.
For those outside Atlanta city limits, there are chapters across the state, including in Newnan, East Cobb (founded by Griesenauer’s mother), South Fulton, Decatur, Suwanee, and more. Check the Silent Book Club website to find a chapter near you.
The first big day of the Atlanta Hawks offseason will be this Sunday when the 2024 NBA Draft Lottery takes place. It has been a quite month for the Hawks since their season ended in Chicago in the NBA’s play-in tournament, but they will officially know their draft position after 3:00 on Sunday.
This is not quite the most anticipated draft lottery in recent memory, but if the Hawks can find a way to move up in the lottery, the pick would become a more valuable trade asset if they wish to trade the pick or they could use it to select a player (Alex Sarr?). Despite this being a down year in terms of elite top talent in the draft, it would be huge if the Hawks could move up.
Coming into Sunday, Atlanta’s pre-draft position is 10th. They have a 13.9% chance to land a top-four pick and a 3% chance to land the No. 1 pick. If the lottery were to stay as projected, Atlanta would pick 10th. They can pick as low as 12th or as high as 1st.
For the Atlanta Hawks, they are going to be in the NBA Draft Lottery for the first time since the 2020 NBA Draft, where they picked Onyeka Okongwu at No. 6 overall. The Hawks have never won the NBA Draft Lottery and have only picked in the top four of the draft four times (2018, 2007, 2005, 2001). The only two drafts in which they have moved up more than one projected lottery spot were in 2001 and 1985. The NBA Draft lottery has not always been kind to the Atlanta Hawks, but they are hoping they can move into the top four of this draft, even if this is not considered to be a strong draft.
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Here are the teams involved in this year’s NBA Draft Lottery, along with their odds of getting the No. 1 overall pick:
Here is how the NBA Draft Lottery works, courtesy of NBA.com:
“The 39th annual NBA Draft Lottery will determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2024 NBA Draft. Drawings will be conducted to determine the first four picks in the NBA Draft. The remainder of the “lottery teams” will select in positions five through 14 in inverse order of their 2023-24 regular-season records.
The actual lottery procedure will take place in a separate room just before ESPN’s national broadcast. Select media, NBA officials and representatives of the participating teams and the accounting firm Ernst & Young will be in attendance for the drawings.
Fourteen ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 will be placed in a lottery machine. There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of 14, without regard to their order of selection. Before the lottery, 1,000 of those 1,001 combinations will be assigned to the 14 participating lottery teams. The lottery machine is manufactured by the Smart Play Company, a leading manufacturer of state lottery machines throughout the United States. Smart Play also weighs, measures and certifies the ping-pong balls before the drawing.
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The drawing process occurs in the following manner: All 14 balls are placed in the lottery machine and they are mixed for 20 seconds, and then the first ball is removed. The remaining balls are mixed in the lottery machine for another 10 seconds, and then the second ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the third ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the fourth ball is drawn. The team that has been assigned that combination will receive the No. 1 pick. The same process is repeated with the same ping-pong balls and lottery machine for the second through fourth picks.
If the same team comes up more than once, the result is discarded and another four-ball combination is selected. Also, if the one unassigned combination is drawn, the result is discarded and the balls are drawn again. The length of time the balls are mixed is monitored by a timekeeper who faces away from the machine and signals the machine operator after the appropriate amount of time has elapsed.
A representative from Ernst & Young oversees the entire lottery process and stuffs and seals the envelopes before bringing them to the studio for the broadcast. The announcement of the lottery results will be made by NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum. A second representative from each participating team will be seated on stage. Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the team representatives on stage will be informed of the lottery results before the envelopes are opened. The team whose logo is in the last envelope opened will have the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, which will be held on June 26-27, 2024.”
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