Avondale Police shoot man after struggle
- 7/15/11
- Categorized in: Crime, DeKalb News
An Avondale Estates Police officer shot and killed a man after a struggle behind the Avondale Patillo United Methodist Church off of Covington Highway on July 15, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
John Bankhead, a spokesman for the GBI who was on the scene, said that at approximately noon an officer made a routine traffic stop and pulled an individual into the parking lot of the church located at 3260 Covington Highway.
“The shooting had nothing to do with the traffic stop,” Bankhead said. “A church worker had seen a suspicious man out in front of the building acting in a strange manner and went and told the officer.”
Bankhead said the officer then approached the individual and the church worker walked off. When she turned around again the officer and the suspect were gone.
“The suspect ran off and he was chasing him and they wound up on the opposite side of the church in the woods…there was a struggle and the suspect was armed and apparently reaching for his weapon and the officer shot him,” Bankhead said.
According to Bankhead the suspect, whose name has not yet been released, was being transported to Grady Hospital but died en route so his body was then transported to the DeKalb County Medical Examiners Office.
The officer involved suffered no injuries.
YOU THINK ???
The church worker's suspicions likely came from seeing someone loitering around school and church buildings with a HISTORY OF BREAK-INS, ROBBERIES AT GUNPOINT and THEFT OF A/C METALS.
1. The church worker literally flags down a cop, then just turns her back and walks away, doesn't hear the two take off running (presumably, the police officer was yelling the proverbial stuff cops yell when chasing suspects -- especially suspects who have been... loitering)? For someone so interested, she sure ends up having nothing to say, à la Sergeant Schultz.
"When she turned around again the officer and the suspect were gone." I *hate* when that happens...
2. Therefore, no witnesses. [I'm just sayin'...]
but most of all...
3. The way this is written, it sounds like the ambulance crew never made it to Grady, where the man would have been pronounced. Or am I just reading it wrong?
"According to Bankhead the suspect, whose name has not yet been released, was being transported to Grady Hospital but died en route so his body was then transported to the DeKalb County Medical Examiners Office."
In other words, this doesn't sound or feel right. I wonder what the radio communication surrounding this shooting was like...
It's always a tragedy when some one dies, I hope the tragedy isn't compounded by malfeasance.
Let the man have the control he needs to do his job, and your bet is that your event will be much easier. Nobody has to die in situations like this!
Dying like this, is just plain stupid.