ATLANTA — Actor Thomas Jefferson Byrd, identified for his roles in Spike Lee motion pictures, has been shot and killed in Atlanta, police stated Sunday.
Police spoke back to a decision round 1:45 a.m. Saturday and located the 70-year-old Byrd unresponsive with more than one gunshot wounds in his again, police spokesman Officer Anthony Grant stated in a commentary.
Responding paramedics pronounced him lifeless on the scene at the town’s southwest facet, the place he lived.
Grant stated murder detectives have been operating to resolve the cases surrounding the taking pictures and declined to supply additional main points.
In an Instagram submit Sunday, Lee stated he was once unhappy to announce Byrd’s loss of life and recalled how the actor “did his thang” in his motion pictures together with “Clockers,” “Chi-Raq,” “Bamboozled,” “He Got Game” and “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus,” amongst others.
“May we all wish condolences and blessings to his family,” Lee wrote. “Rest in peace, Brother Byrd.”
Lee additionally shared a few of his favourite scenes with Byrd from “Clockers” and “Bamboozled.”
Byrd, additionally a level actor, was once nominated in 2003 for a Tony for his efficiency within the Broadway revival of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” co-starring Whoopi Goldberg and Charles S. Dutton.
Oscar-winning actor Viola Davis tweeted: “Oh no!!! 2020! Whaaattt!!!”
“Loved working with you Byrd,” she wrote. “What a fine actor you were. So sorry your life ended this way. Praying for your family.”
Byrd was once a “brilliant dancer, actor, and friend,” Elisabeth Omilami, a fellow actor and neighborhood activist, informed WXIA-TV in Atlanta.
“He was a special person whose personality filled up the whole room when he entered you knew he was there,” she stated. “He fought his way through this very racist and difficult Hollywood system and was able to maintain a career through it all.”
She stated Byrd had only in the near past completed his closing movie, “Freedom’s Path,” along with her husband, actor Afemo Omilami.
Actor Lori Petty tweeted: “What a man, what a talent … what a crazy loss.”