Linton “B‑Green” Blackwell, a 44‑year-old Atlanta rapper and devoted father, was struck 17 times — all from behind — by an off-duty Atlanta police officer outside a Buckhead bar, according to a Fulton County medical examiner’s autopsy.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) is leading the probe into the fatal Oct. 11 shooting. The officer, now identified as Gerald Walker, was working a side security job at the 5 Paces Inn bar on Irby Avenue when he responded to reports of an argument.
According to GBI’s preliminary report, Blackwell walked away from Walker and headed toward a back parking lot. There, he entered a vehicle and appeared to place something in the small of his back, prompting the officer to issue commands regarding a gun — and then open fire. First responders tried to help Blackwell, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The autopsy painted a grim picture: two entry wounds in his upper right back, one in his buttocks, and fourteen in his mid to lower back. His death was ruled a homicide.
Blackwell’s friends and family are raising serious questions — especially why he was shot from behind so many times. Timothy Coleman, a longtime friend and his manager, said that he cannot reconcile the number of shots with the idea that Blackwell posed an immediate threat. “There’s not one shot in the front,” Coleman said. “He wasn’t facing you. He wasn’t a threat.”
William Stanley, a friend who was with Blackwell that night, offered a strikingly different account from the police narrative. He told Capital B Atlanta that Walker may have known Blackwell prior to that night; when they arrived at the bar together, Walker — working security — patted both of them down. After an altercation inside, Stanley says Blackwell tried to reenter the building from the back while Walker chased after him. “When I bent the corner … he had already shot him over five or six times … Why are you still shooting him?” he recalled screaming.
Blackwell’s family has pressed for accountability. His cousin, Jimmy Hill, called the scene “a new form of modern‑day lynching,” questioning how someone could be shot that many times if they weren’t facing the shooter. Meanwhile, Blackwell’s partner, Erika Bouttry, remembers him as a loving father to their 15‑year-old twin daughters, always encouraging them, always motivating them.
Adding to the tension, Walker’s record has come under scrutiny: He joined the Atlanta Police Department in 2023 and has seven work-rule violations on file, six of which were sustained. As the GBI continues its investigation, the family is demanding more than answers — they want justice. “Gerald Walker needs to be behind bars,” Coleman said plainly.
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