Lithonia Barbershop Shooting: Suspect Arrested With Three Guns After Weeks-Long Manhunt

A gunman opened fire inside a Lithonia barbershop in July, and it took more than a month, a fugitive task force, and a traffic stop loaded with three firearms to bring him in.

What Happened

On July 13, 2026, deputies were called to a barbershop on Wellborn Road in Lithonia, Georgia, after a man was found with serious injuries. That victim has since been identified as Renarda De'untay Milner, who authorities say was shot inside the shop.

More than six weeks later, the case broke open. On August 26, the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office Fugitive Unit, working alongside the U.S. Marshals Service, tracked down 27-year-old Lamar Dionte Jones of Lithonia. He was arrested without incident at the intersection of Covington Highway and Panola Road, but the traffic stop turned up something alarming: three separate firearms inside his vehicle.

Jones now faces an aggravated assault charge tied to the barbershop shooting and is being held without bond at the DeKalb County Jail. Investigators have not disclosed a motive, and it remains unclear whether Jones and Milner knew each other before the gunfire. The victim's injuries were described as serious.

Why It Matters

A shooting inside a working barbershop, a space built on trust, close proximity, and open doors, always lands harder than a random street crime. Clients sit still in chairs. Barbers stand exposed with their backs turned mid-cut. There's rarely a clean exit route, and rarely any warning.

The month-long gap between the shooting and the arrest also underscores a hard truth for shop owners: even when law enforcement is actively working a case, a suspect can remain armed and at large in the community for weeks. That's a real safety window shops in the area had to sit with.

Industry Impact

Barbershop shootings like this one keep making headlines this year, and the pattern is hard for shop owners to ignore. Insurance costs, client hesitation, and staff turnover can all follow a high-profile incident, even at shops that had nothing to do with the original dispute.

Barbershops sit in a strange spot for security planning: too small for the security budgets of big-box retail, but just as exposed to the same risks, cash on hand, predictable hours, glass storefronts, and a steady flow of strangers walking in off the street.

Lessons for Barbers: Safety Takeaways

A few practical steps shop owners can put in place this week:

• Know your exits. Every barber and receptionist should be able to name the fastest way out of the shop from their chair without thinking about it.
• Build a violence response plan, not just a fire drill. Security experts recommend the same run-hide-fight framework used in schools and offices: leave if you can, hide and barricade if you can't, and only fight as an absolute last resort.
• Watch the door, not just the chair. Staff who are heads-down cutting hair are the most exposed in the room. Assign someone, even informally, to keep an eye on who's coming in.
• Don't wait for a written plan to sit in a drawer. Security consultants note that a written workplace violence prevention plan works only if staff actually know it exists and have practiced it, not just filed it away.
• Report threats immediately, however small. Disputes that start as arguments over a client, a chair, or a personal beef have preceded real gunfire at shops elsewhere this year, de-escalation and reporting early matters more than reacting after the fact.

Helpful Resources

Shop owners looking to formalize a safety plan can look into OSHA's workplace violence prevention guidance and active-shooter response training programs like ALICE, both of which are built for small, high-foot-traffic businesses similar to barbershops.

Bottom Line

The Lithonia case is moving toward the courts now, with Jones held without bond on an aggravated assault charge. For the wider barbering community, it's another reminder that a chair, a mirror, and an open door don't come with built-in protection, that has to be built deliberately, shop by shop.