An attorney for the 18-year-old defendant says investigators and courts must examine evidence beyond the initial public narrative.
DECATUR, Ga. — The criminal case against 18-year-old Julian Ellis rests publicly on arrest-warrant allegations involving recorded video, witness identifications and evidence collected after a DeKalb County shooting killed two young brothers, while his attorney has cautioned that those early records do not provide a complete account of the confrontation.
Ellis is accused in the Sept. 20 deaths of Ja’marion Rolle, 11, and Ja’Khi Clark, 12, who were shot during a fight at an apartment complex on North Hairston Road in the Stone Mountain area. Two women related to the boys were also wounded and survived. Police arrested Ellis two days later. DeKalb County police announced two felony-murder counts and six aggravated-assault counts, while separate reports based on online jail records showed four aggravated-assault counts with a weapon. That difference has not been clearly reconciled in the reviewed public reporting and illustrates why the precise charging document matters as the case develops.
The strongest publicly described evidence tying Ellis to the gunfire appears in the arrest warrants reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The warrants said the shooting was captured on video and that members of the group with Ellis identified him as the person holding the firearm. The boys’ mother separately told WSB-TV that she provided police with video after people involved in the confrontation left. Those accounts indicate investigators had more than a general description of a suspect when they made the arrest, although the reviewed reports do not include the complete recording or establish what portions investigators believe show the shooting itself.
Investigators also documented evidence at the apartment complex. An incident report said officers found multiple shell casings in a grassy area and saw bullet holes in a wooden fence and an upstairs window, according to the AJC. Such evidence can help investigators reconstruct where shots were fired and where bullets traveled, but the publicly available reporting does not provide a final ballistics report, a laboratory comparison linking recovered casings to a particular gun or a complete forensic reconstruction. Those missing details are important because an arrest warrant is an early stage of a criminal proceeding rather than a final evidentiary record.
The warrants describe a confrontation with a history. Several days before the shooting, some of the people involved had been playing football together. A person whose name was redacted from the records said a group of juveniles had been bullying him. The mother of Ja’marion and Ja’Khi also told police that her family had been involved in a fight Thursday with young people who did not live at the complex. On Sunday, she said, a group of girls came to the family’s backyard looking to fight her sons. The group later returned, and the mother reported seeing a man she believed was armed before the confrontation grew.
According to the incident report, objects were thrown and multiple people began fighting. The warrants allege Ellis became involved and fired the gun. Four relatives were struck. Ja’marion was found wounded and pronounced dead at the scene. Ja’Khi was transported to a hospital in critical condition and later died. Police initially described the surviving victims as women ages 19 and 39, then later corrected the older woman’s age to 37. Other local reports described the wounded pair as the boys’ aunt and cousin. Authorities have not released extensive medical details about either surviving victim.
Ellis’ attorney, Daryl Queen, responded to the release of those allegations by emphasizing what the documents do not settle. Queen, a public defender assigned after Ellis’ arrest, told the AJC that additional evidence and context remained to be examined, including the circumstances that led to his client’s arrest. The defense said the facts should be established through the investigative and judicial process rather than by speculation or an incomplete public narrative. Ellis is presumed innocent unless prosecutors prove the charges against him in court.
That distinction matters in a case where the first police accounts, booking information and later warrant reports do not align on every detail. Police and several Atlanta television stations reported six aggravated-assault counts. The AJC and Law&Crime cited records showing four. The difference does not alter the two felony-murder charges reported across the sources, but it means a current indictment or official court docket would be necessary to state the exact active assault counts with confidence. The sources reviewed for this article did not establish why the numbers differed or whether the charging configuration was later amended.
Ellis appeared in court Sept. 24, Atlanta News First reported. The reviewed sources did not establish a conviction, plea or trial outcome through Nov. 8. They also did not show that investigators had charged additional people in the two deaths, even though the underlying reports described a group confrontation and several people who arrived at or returned to the apartment complex. Police Chief Gregory Padrick said investigators would follow the evidence and take action if it showed other people were responsible, leaving open the possibility that the scope of the case could change.
The two boys’ schools became another part of the public record after their deaths. Ja’marion attended Stone Mill Elementary School as a fifth grader, and Ja’Khi was a sixth grader at Stone Mountain Middle School. Both schools offered counseling and other support after the shooting. County and school officials also appeared together Sept. 23 to discuss youth violence and announce a $250,000 prevention initiative. Officials said the program had already been in development for about a year, so it was not presented as a policy created because of this case.
The initiative, called Education to Empowerment, is designed for students in grades six through 12 and includes work on conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, leadership and behavior regulation. Its announcement added a policy response to a week otherwise dominated by the criminal investigation. But the program does not answer the evidentiary questions that will determine Ellis’ legal responsibility. Those questions concern what the video shows, how witnesses identified the shooter, how forensic evidence matches the scene and whether prosecutors can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ellis committed the crimes charged.
For now, the publicly supported record stops short of a final judgment. Police have alleged that Ellis fired during the confrontation, warrants say video captured the episode, and members of his group identified him as the gunman. His defense has said the circumstances require fuller examination. As of the latest reliable reports reviewed through Nov. 8, the investigation and criminal process had not produced a publicly reported final resolution, leaving the allegations to be tested through the courts rather than treated as established guilt.
Author note: Last updated Nov. 8, 2026.