Police say they are often called to apartment building where woman was shot and wounded

In the days after a resident of The Darlington apartments on Peachtree Road was shot in the finger through her closed apartment door, another resident said crime has been an ongoing problem at the Buckhead building.

“Every time I leave or come to my apartment, I feel unsafe,” Darlington resident Je Wesley Day said.

Resident Natasha Smith lost part of her middle finger when she was struck inside her apartment by a bullet that passed through the door or wall at about 2:45 a.m. on Dec. 14, police said.

Donald Davis, 23, who lives in the apartment next to Smith, and resident Monzell Johnson, 23, who lives in the apartment across the hall from Smith, were detained by police after the Dec. 14 shooting and their apartments were searched, according to a police report.

Atlanta police say they recorded 438 calls for police to come to the building at 2025 Peachtree Road between June 1 and Dec. 17.

Sgt. Warren Pickard said 14 of the calls in the six-month period were for reports of shots fired. Pickard said he could not easily break down the reasons for all the calls, but “either way, that’s a lot of calls for one particular address.”

Representatives of The Darlington did not return calls seeking comment for this article.

Perdita Harris, the security guard who was on duty Dec. 14 at the apartment building, saw Davis and a woman walk through the lobby arguing, according to the police report. They got into the elevator and, a few minutes later, Harris heard gunshots and called 911, the report says.

Another resident who lives in the building but asked not to be identified told a friend gunfire was exchanged between two apartments on the seventh floor.  When police arrived, they found spent rifle shell casings on the floor in the hall, the report says.

Smith told police that she, her boyfriend and her son were in the main room of the apartment when she heard gun shots. She was struck was hit by a bullet that came through either the wall or the door.

The bullet hit her in the middle finger of her right hand, the report says. When the shooting stopped, she, her boyfriend and her son walked across the street to Piedmont Hospital for treatment, the report says.

Day moved from Texas to The Darlington in June to attend a doctoral program at Argosy University. He says he wants out of his year-long apartment lease because of crime at the apartment building.

Day said he learned his apartment unit previously belonged to a drug dealer and said he has received threats, been followed, and had people trying to peer into his apartment through the peephole and between seems in his door.

“The Darlington’s response is they are not responsible for my safety and they won’t move me to a new apartment unless I pay a fee,” Day said. “They admit my house is a former dope house/sex house, which is why I have all the traffic coming to my apartment.”