Police say the 3-year-old boy was inside a southwest Atlanta apartment when he suffered a gunshot wound early Sunday.
ATLANTA, Ga. — A southwest Atlanta mother is demanding answers after her 3-year-old son was shot and killed early Sunday while he was staying with a longtime babysitter at an apartment on Washington Street SW, according to police and family members.
Investigators have identified the child as Armani Lyons, a boy his family remembers as playful and full of energy. The case has drawn attention across Atlanta because police have not said who fired the shot or how the child came to be wounded. City leaders also raised the killing while speaking about a violent Easter weekend that included several separate shootings across the city.
Police said officers were called at about 12:37 a.m. Sunday to the 900 block of Washington Street SW in Atlanta’s Zone 3 after a report of a person shot. When officers arrived, they found Armani with an apparent gunshot wound and rushed him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. By Tuesday, his mother, Dinisha Lyons, said the shock had deepened into grief. “It finally hit me yesterday at the funeral home that this really happened,” Lyons said. “He’s really gone.” She said she had dropped Armani off late Saturday night before heading to her job at the airport.
Police have said the child had been left with a 70-year-old babysitter, whom officers later questioned as a witness. Authorities have not announced charges, named a suspect or explained whether the shot was fired inside or outside the apartment. Assistant Chief Carven Tyus told reporters that Armani somehow ended up with a gunshot wound to the head while in the care of the babysitter. Family members say that is not enough. Lyons said she still has not been given a clear account of what happened in the hours between leaving her son at the apartment and being told to go to Grady Memorial Hospital. “Nobody saying nothing and nobody coming forward,” she said, pleading for someone to explain how a small child was killed.
The shooting happened at an apartment complex near Washington Street and Hatcher Avenue, where neighbors told local reporters they saw a heavy police response after midnight. One witness said an officer was seen carrying a young child from the building. As detectives worked the scene, crime scene tape blocked the entrance to the property. Armani’s death quickly became one of the most heartbreaking cases in a holiday weekend marked by multiple shootings in Atlanta. On Monday, city officials publicly addressed the violence and said the deaths of a teenager in Piedmont Park and a 3-year-old on Washington Street had shaken the city. The case also underscored a familiar problem for investigators in gun cases: few public answers in the first days, even as grieving relatives press for basic facts.
For Lyons and her relatives, the unanswered questions have made the mourning harder. Armani’s grandmother, Trinetta Julian, said the city should use any available security footage to piece together the child’s final hours. “City of Atlanta, get to work,” Julian said, adding that cameras in the area may hold crucial evidence. The family has also publicly called on the shooter to surrender. Lyons, speaking through grief and anger, asked what a 3-year-old could have done to become a target. At the same time, investigators have kept many details private, a sign that detectives may still be trying to verify who was in the apartment, where the weapon came from and whether anyone there could face criminal liability.
The family is now preparing to honor Armani in the same neighborhood where he died. A candlelight vigil was scheduled for Thursday evening at the apartment complex, and funeral services were set for Saturday. Relatives say Armani loved monster trucks and Spider-Man and brought constant motion and laughter into a room. That image stands in painful contrast to the sparse public record released so far by police: a time, an address, a gunshot wound and a child who never made it home. As of Wednesday night, no arrest had been announced, and the central question in the case remained the one his mother has repeated since his death: who shot Armani Lyons, and why?
Author note: Last updated April 9, 2026.