Prosecutors say Eboni Anderson was delivering food when Christopher Ates shot her outside an elementary school entrance.
PALMETTO, Ga. — A Georgia man remains jailed on murder and related allegations after prosecutors said he shot a DoorDash driver outside an elementary school, forcing a lockdown and evacuation while students were still on campus.
The case stems from the Feb. 10 killing of 34-year-old Eboni Anderson outside Palmetto Elementary School in south Fulton County. Investigators say Anderson had arrived to deliver food to a teacher when Christopher Ates, 39, confronted and shot her. The public stakes go beyond the homicide charge itself. The gunfire happened in front of a school during the day, turning what authorities described as a domestic dispute into a wider public emergency involving hundreds of children, teachers and parents. Ates remains held without bond as the case moves toward grand jury review.
Police said the shooting happened around 11 a.m. outside the school entrance. Officers responding to reports of gunfire found Anderson wounded near the front of the campus. She died at the scene. School staff triggered an emergency alert and the campus went into a hard lockdown almost immediately. Students were later moved to Bear Creek Middle School so families could pick them up away from the active crime scene. Authorities said more than 550 children were relocated and that no students or staff were physically injured. Anderson, identified in public reports as a mother of three, was working a delivery route when the shooting happened. That detail has remained central to how the case is understood: a routine work stop became the site of a fatal shooting within sight of a school full of children.
As the case moved into court, prosecutors added more detail from surveillance and chase evidence. Reports from the preliminary hearing said video showed Anderson arriving in a black GMC Acadia with a food order. Prosecutors said the footage captured a confrontation outside the vehicle and showed Ates assaulting her and then shooting her multiple times. One account described Anderson throwing Ates’ bags out of the vehicle just before the gunfire. After the shooting, authorities said, Ates fled and later led officers on a chase that ended near the Houston-Twiggs county line when his vehicle crashed. A young child was reportedly inside the vehicle during the pursuit, adding a separate layer to the case and helping explain why he also faces a cruelty-to-children allegation. Prosecutors have used those facts to frame the case not only as a killing, but as one followed by flight and additional risk to others.
The location has shaped the public reaction almost as much as the alleged crime itself. A shooting outside a school entrance is immediately bigger than a dispute between two adults because the setting forces educators, police and families into crisis response. Palmetto Elementary had to halt its school day, shelter students and relocate them while police processed the scene. Officials later stressed that no one inside the school was targeted and no student was injured, but that reassurance came only after a large-scale emergency response. The incident also highlighted how gig-economy work can place drivers in public spaces that change quickly from routine to dangerous, though the charging record so far treats the motive as personal rather than tied to Anderson’s work.
The legal case is still developing. A Fulton County judge found probable cause for six charges, including malice murder, after hearing evidence that included surveillance and chase video. Ates was denied bond and remains in custody. The next major step is expected to be grand jury action, which would determine the formal indictment that carries the case forward in superior court. Prosecutors are likely to build their case around the school video, the officers who responded, evidence from the pursuit and testimony about Ates’ relationship to Anderson. The public record does not yet contain a full defense narrative, and no trial date has been announced. What it does show is a prosecution built around a daylight shooting in a place where children were present and a suspect who, police say, fled rather than surrendering at the scene.
Ates remains jailed without bond as Fulton County prosecutors prepare the next stage of the case. The next public marker will be whether a grand jury returns an indictment and moves the case toward arraignment.
Author note: Last updated March 15, 2026.