ALPHARETTA, Ga. — The man shot to death in downtown Alpharetta was a husband and father who moved to the area in 2015, and his family says he fell in love with his adopted hometown.
“So good, we love downtown Alpharetta,” Justin Mourning said in a YouTube clip shared by his family.
Mourning was shot several times Wednesday night after police say he got into an argument with a man on a motorcycle.
A police spokesperson said Mourning was upset with how the motorcyclist was driving through downtown.
Police responded just after 11 p.m. to a shots fired call at Milton Avenue and Main Street. Mourning, 46, died in the hospital.
On Thursday, Alpharetta police arrested 21-year-old Jaden Lewis, of Milton, charging him with murder and aggravated assault.
“Justin Mourning was a beloved husband, father, colleague, and friend to many,” said a written statement from Vanessa Edmonds, a spokesperson for the family.
He leaves behind his daughter, Tenlie, who graduated from Columbia University, and his son, Haden, who’s a junior at Georgia Southern University.
Mourning and his wife of 17 years, Tiffany Mourning, moved to Alpharetta from Colorado.
Justin grew up in Denver and was a lifelong Broncos fan.
He worked for Lumen Technologies, which issued a statement, saying: “We deeply mourn the tragic loss of a member of the Lumen family. We are doing what we can to comfort his family and those who worked with him.”
While police were looking for a suspect, they released images of the motorcyclist that were captured on the dash camera of a witness’s car.
In an incident report, officers say a man on a black Triumph Bonneville motorcycle returned to the scene because his phone had been found in the street. The man’s name is redacted in the report, but police questioned him about where he had been that night and took down his license plate number.
Capt. Andrew Splawn of the Alpharetta Department of Public Safety said police determined that Lewis, the suspect, was the motorcyclist in the photos. He said the two men did not know each other.
“They got into an argument that evening over the motorcycle operator driving in the downtown area,” Splawn said in a text to Channel 2′s Bryan Mims.
“Justin was a member of the TAG Cloud Society and a dedicated member of the Northpoint Community Church,” the family’s statement said.
He enjoyed “walking the many beautiful miles of the Big Creek Greenway and spending time enjoying the many amenities of Alpharetta.”