Fort Valley couple plans to sue apartments in wake of shooting that killed 1-year-old son

A Fort Valley couple is filing a lawsuit against their apartment complex after their two toddlers were shot last month, they announced in a press conference Wednesday.

Marcus Ball Jr., 1, was shot and killed at the Lakeview Apartments in Fort Valley on July 20. His sister Markailey Ball, 2, was also shot in the incident and was treated at local hospitals following the shooting. Their parents, Marcus Ball Sr. and Tiffany Walker, hired a law firm to file a lawsuit against Lakeview Apartments.

“I’m just asking you all at this time to just keep our family uplifting you in your prayers because we need it at this time,” Walker said at a press conference. “A mother should never have to bury their child. Especially one years old.”

The couple held the press conference with their lawyers and the recovering baby Markailey present. The 2-year-old babbled and waved an arm doctors apparently said she “may never be able to fully use” as her father emphasized that the shooting was not related to the family’s everyday lives.

“Like I said, we never had nothing to do with crime, or the shooting, or anything else that happened out there, and I’m never affiliated with no gang, nothing like that,” Ball Sr. said. “Just trying to do the right thing to provide for my family.”

The couple and their lawyers claim that Lakeview Apartments have not properly kept their complex safe and could have foreseen the incident, referencing other instances of violence in the past.

“The epidemic that is going on right now in our society of violence at apartment complexes must end,” said lawyer L. Chris Stewart of Stewart Miller and Simmons, an Atlanta firm that represents the family. “Sadly Lakeview has had a history of violence which my law partner would discuss.”

The firm said that the death of the baby was the third fatal shooting at the apartments in the past two months and the fourth in two years. The lawyers suggested solutions such as guards on foot and improved security cameras.

“This was a foreseeable crime that they could have easily prevented,” said attorney Madeline Simmons. “They did not have security at night when the majority of these kinds of crimes that they were aware about were occurring, so we will be filing a civil lawsuit to hold them accountable for this.”

The lawsuit has not been filed. The family also mentioned that they were planning to leave Lakeview Apartments at the time of the shooting and are still attempting to move out.

According to Peach County tax records, Lakeview Apartments is owned by HSI Management, providing public housing subsidized by the federal government.