A Fulton County Superior Court judge has ruled that Johnathan Hamby, the 54-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing 29-year-old Ramon Harris on the Atlanta BeltLine in August, is not competent to stand trial. The ruling, issued Tuesday, means Hamby will be moved to the court's competency docket and has no future court dates scheduled until 2027.
According to WSB-TV, Hamby stabbed Harris in the neck and has been arrested at least 30 times, according to records. Hamby's family has said he suffered from severe mental-health issues and often believed he was under attack by nearby bystanders. Harris' friends are demanding change in his name, and a friend identified as Trinity said Harris should not have been out and that the stabbing was preventable.
According to 11Alive, Hamby will be moved to the competency docket. Court records indicate Hamby remains in Fulton County Sheriff's Office custody following the transfer.
A History of Violence and Missed Warnings
Hamby's record includes two separate aggravated assault knife attacks predating the BeltLine killing. He received 17 years of probation in Fulton County for a 2017 stabbing and a 10-year sentence in DeKalb County for a knife attack, with two years in confinement credited as time served and eight years of probation; he was serving active probation sentences in both counties at the time of the August attack, 11Alive reported.
DeKalb County court records show Hamby's probation was revoked and reinstated in May 2026, per the same account. He received credit for time served during previous probation revocations.
A more glaring breakdown surfaced out of Fulton County. On October 13, 2026, the Georgia Department of Community Supervision said it was reviewing the circumstances surrounding a December 2025 Fulton County probation-violation warrant against Hamby that had been dismissed by a judge because the state agency failed to submit required petition paperwork, according to a separate 11Alive report. Without that paperwork, prosecutors could not proceed on the probation violation, leaving Hamby free on the streets months before the fatal attack.
The Stabbing and the Arrest
The killing happened on August 23 near the Ponce de Leon Avenue Kroger along the Eastside Trail, a stretch of the BeltLine that has carried the nickname “Murder Kroger” since violent incidents there in 1991, 2002, and 2015, long before the site's $190 million commercial redevelopment, Hoodline previously reported. 911 callers reported a man bleeding from a neck stab wound on the crowded trail.
Body camera footage released by the Atlanta Police Department showed an officer holding Hamby at gunpoint along the Eastside Trail near 725 Ponce de Leon Avenue NE, where Hamby claimed on camera that he was acting in self-defense, according to CBS News.
Remembering Ramon Harris
Harris was a regular in the local skateboarding community near the Old Fourth Ward skate park. He was raised in foster care and was the father of a 9-year-old son with his former partner, per 11Alive's reporting.
Family Points to Gaps in Mental Health Law
In a public statement, Hamby's family criticized Georgia mental health laws for leaving families with, in their words, “two extremes: brief jail stays that treat psychiatric illness as a crime or total guardianship, which is incredibly difficult to secure,” CBS News reported. The family said they had spent years trying to secure long-term psychiatric care for him.
City Response and Trail Security
Separately, in October, the Atlanta Police Department deployed 15 new e-bikes to its dedicated BeltLine Path Force Unit, with the 80-mile-range bikes meant to speed up response times across the trail's 22-mile network following the year's violent incidents.
For now, the criminal case against Hamby is frozen. The judge's order halts proceedings until at least 2027, and it remains unclear whether the Department of Community Supervision's internal review of its probation warrant dismissal will lead to any findings, or whether city or state lawmakers will pursue changes to how Georgia handles repeat offenders with severe, unmanaged psychiatric conditions.
