Funeral Shooting Victims Identified

The two people killed in a shooting at a DeKalb County funeral were gunmen who fired at one another during an argument, police said Friday.

The dead were identified as Carlos Henderson Jr., 19, and Delmetrius Heard, 28.

Also injured in the shooting were a 12-year-old girl and another man. Their injuries are not life-threatening, police said.

Police said Henderson and Heard were attending the funeral for 19-year-old homicide victim Ryan Devon Guider Thursday at Victory for the World Church near Stone Mountain. As 500 mourners left the North Hairston Road church’s sanctuary, the shooting victims argued and went to their vehicles to retrieve guns.

Ryan Guider

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In the aftermath of the shooting Thursday, DeKalb Public Safety Director William Miller had said police believed the man accused of killing Guider, Marcus D. Ventress, attended the funeral and ended up in the church’s parking lot with a gun, fired several shots into the air and other people returned fire.

Friday, police backed away from that, saying there is no indication Ventress was there. He is still sought in the May 27 killing of Guider.

Witnesses said as many as eight shots were fired at the funeral. {snip}

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The church’s pastor, Kenneth L. Samuel, who founded the church in 1987, told the AJC he heard the commotion but didn’t immediately know what had happened. But the irony between what he had just said during the eulogy and the acts the followed was almost surreal, he said.

“This is exactly what I was preaching,” Samuel said. “There are too many guns. There are too many young people who do not know how to handle anger. We’ve got to find a better way. Our message has got to be peace.”

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Authorities said Ventress, 28, shot Guider as retaliation. Law enforcement sources told investigators that Guider “burglarized the home of Ventress, stealing jewelry, cash and drugs and punching Ventress’ mother,” Sgt. Adrion Bell with the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office said. Police said Ventress also is accused of shooting into an apartment in the 5800 block of Treecrest Parkway, thinking Guider lived there.

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