County officials paired grief over the fatal shooting with a $250,000 prevention initiative that had been in development for about a year.
DECATUR, Ga. — Days after two brothers ages 11 and 12 were killed in a shooting tied by investigators to an earlier dispute among young people, DeKalb County leaders announced a $250,000 school-based initiative aimed at conflict resolution, emotional intelligence and violence prevention, placing a long-planned program against the backdrop of a new community loss.
The initiative, called Education to Empowerment, was presented Sept. 23 by county, police and school officials. Leaders said it would serve students in sixth through 12th grades through a 12-week program that includes leadership development, behavior regulation, conflict resolution and connections to positive educational and economic opportunities. Officials repeatedly said the program had been in development for roughly a year and was not created in response to the shooting three days earlier. Even so, the deaths of Ja’marion Rolle, 11, and Ja’Khi Clark, 12, shaped the public discussion surrounding its announcement.
County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson said the effort was intended to go beyond warning young people against violence by giving them constructive tools and opportunities. School officials described connections to caring adults, education and future employment as protective factors. The county planned to focus the program on schools in areas identified through crime data as facing greater challenges. An October update from a DeKalb County commissioner’s office said the effort would also include parent assemblies, town halls and peer outreach, while participating schools and a specific launch date were still to be announced.
The urgency came from more than a policy discussion. On Sept. 20, police were called to an apartment complex on North Hairston Road after gunfire struck four members of one family. Ja’marion died at the scene. His older brother, Ja’Khi, was taken to a hospital in critical condition and later died. Two women also were wounded and survived. Police initially described them as 19 and 39 years old, though Police Chief Gregory Padrick later said the older woman was 37. Local reporting identified them as relatives of the boys.
The brothers attended different DeKalb schools. Ja’marion was a fifth grader at Stone Mill Elementary School, while Ja’Khi was a sixth grader at Stone Mountain Middle School. School leaders made counselors, psychologists and other support personnel available following the deaths. The killings therefore touched not only one household and one apartment community but also two separate student populations. District officials said violence involving children can place a broad emotional burden on classmates, families and educators, even when the incident occurs away from a school campus.
Police allege the fatal confrontation developed from an earlier conflict involving football and accusations of bullying. Arrest warrants reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said some of the people involved had played football together days before the shooting. One person whose name was redacted said juveniles had bullied him. The boys’ mother told police there had been a fight Thursday, Sept. 17, involving her family and other young people. She later told WSB-TV that relatives were having a barbecue Sunday when people connected with the earlier dispute came to the home.
An incident report described a group of girls coming to the backyard to fight the boys, leaving and later returning. The mother told investigators she saw a man she believed was carrying a gun. The confrontation grew as items were thrown and multiple people began fighting. Authorities allege 18-year-old Julian Ellis fired during the encounter. The warrants said the shooting was captured on video and people who were with Ellis identified him as the person with the firearm. Investigators also found shell casings in the grass and bullet damage to a fence and an upstairs window.
Police arrested Ellis on Sept. 22. The department said he faced two counts of felony murder and six counts of aggravated assault. Some jail-record-based reporting listed four aggravated-assault counts with a weapon instead, and the reviewed sources do not explain that discrepancy. Ellis appeared in court two days later. His public defender, Daryl Queen, said information released in the immediate aftermath did not provide a complete picture and that additional evidence and context needed to be evaluated. Ellis is presumed innocent, and no reviewed report through Nov. 8 established a conviction.
The legal case and the prevention initiative address different questions. Prosecutors and investigators must determine individual criminal responsibility for the Sept. 20 shooting. Education to Empowerment is designed to address broader conditions that officials believe can help conflicts escalate or can leave young people without constructive ways to resolve them. County leaders said laws and accountability remain necessary but argued that enforcement alone cannot address every factor behind youth violence. The program therefore emphasizes prevention alongside the separate work of police, prosecutors and courts.
Officials said Education to Empowerment would build on existing community programs and use a school-based curriculum for teenagers. Atlanta News First reported that it would include a student pledge similar to commitments used in athletics, along with parental support and town hall-style meetings. CBS Atlanta reported that leaders envisioned lessons on managing conflict, regulating emotions and making decisions before disputes become violent. Officials did not claim that such a program could have prevented the shooting of Ja’marion and Ja’Khi, and the initiative should not be treated as a finding about the causes of their deaths.
The distinction is especially important because significant facts in the criminal investigation remain unresolved publicly. Police documents describe multiple people participating in the confrontation, and Chief Padrick said investigators would pursue evidence pointing to anyone else who bore responsibility. Yet the reviewed reports identified Ellis as the only person publicly charged in the killings. Authorities had not released a complete account of every participant’s actions, and the defense has challenged the idea that early reports provide enough context to judge the case before the evidence is tested.
By Oct. 8, county officials were still describing the prevention initiative as a developing effort, with participating schools and a launch date yet to be announced in the update reviewed for this story. The criminal investigation likewise had not reached a publicly reported final resolution. The two tracks therefore remained unfinished: one concerned whether prosecutors can prove the charges arising from the shooting, while the other concerned whether sustained intervention in schools and communities can reduce the likelihood that future disputes involving young people end in violence.
The common point between them is the loss that brought renewed public attention to the issue. Ja’marion and Ja’Khi died three days before officials stood together to discuss youth violence in DeKalb County. Leaders said the prevention work predated their deaths, but the brothers’ killing gave the problem an immediate human dimension. As of the latest reliable material reviewed through Nov. 8, Ellis’ case remained unresolved publicly, and the county’s prevention initiative was continuing toward implementation rather than offering a completed measure of results.
Author note: Last updated Nov. 8, 2026.