Police have possible suspects in beer delivery driver’s slaying

Frantz Jean-Pierre hadn’t been delivering beer for long.

He picked up the job a few months ago after his mother got laid off from a poultry plant.

On Monday, the 26-year-old Atlantan was fatally shot in the stomach when someone tried to rob him on a beer delivery at a gas station near Oakland Cemetery.

Tuesday afternoon, Atlanta police were still trying to identify the shooter in the death of the Haitian immigrant, who moved to the United States with his family in 1992.

With the help of some phone tips, police had a couple of possible suspects and planned to identify the gunman by showing photos to witnesses, detective A.C. Smith said Tuesday afternoon.

When the young man known as “Phon-Phon” wasn’t driving a beer truck, he was busy growing his custom clothing business, Proven Apparel, which he founded with another man, said his sister, Azede Jean-Pierre.

The clothes, she said, “were lively. They were really colorful. They were mostly urban wear.”

Frantz Jean-Pierre and his business partner founded the company about two years ago, offering custom T-shirts, as well as other clothing, in numerous stores around the Southeast, Jean-Pierre said.

“It was doing fairly well,” Azede Jean-Pierre said. “Of course, it was a startup company. But they were getting themselves out there.”

The second oldest of eight siblings, Frantz Jean-Pierre took a more assertive role in his family after the death of his father about a year after they moved from Haiti, said Azede Jean-Pierre, 20.

He graduated from Southside Comprehensive High School, now called Maynard Jackson High, in southeast Atlanta in the early 2000s, and attended Clayton State University for a couple years before leaving school to get a job.

His sister described Frantz Jean-Pierre as funny, someone who saw the humor in just about everything.

“If you ask anyone, that’s what they remember — just laughing whenever he was around,” Azede Jean-Pierre said.

But he also had a serious side, becoming deeply interested in Haitian politics and attempting to create a charity to help the poverty-stricken country, said his childhood friend, Lorna Joseph, 22, of Decatur.

Frantz Jean-Pierre was shot after fighting with a man who demanded money from him, Atlanta police said.

After shooting Jean-Pierre, the gunman ran from the gas station, located at the intersection of Memorial Drive and Hill Street.