EAST POINT, Ga. — A neighbor says she thought she and her family were about to be held hostage when a fugitive who police were chasing crashed into her yard and ran off.
Police say they tried to get the man to surrender, but he shot himself.
Connie Walker said a car crashed into a utility pole in her front yard, and then a man jumped out and took off running.
“I was concerned about my safety and my family,” Walker told Channel 2’s Tom Jones. “I didn’t know who it was, and I didn’t want them to come and take us hostage.”
East Point police said the man was a fugitive wanted for armed robbery and aggravated assault.
They said they tracked him down to a food mart in the Bayard Plaza on Sunday, around 1 a.m.
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Police said he took off running, carjacked two women, then drove to Gus Thornhill Jr. Drive, where he crashed the stolen car into a utility pole.
“(He) took off running. At which point officers gave chase and verbal commands to stop, and he didn’t,” said Lt. J.L Watkins with the East Point Police Department.
Police said he went behind a home on Lyle Avenue, and officers could see he had a gun.
“The officer heard one gunshot and went to the rear of the location and noticed him on the ground with a gunshot wound,” Watkins said.
Police say he shot himself. A neighbor told Jones that an officer gave him CPR. The suspect died at the hospital.
Walker said she knows the young man and doesn’t believe he would shoot himself.
“He’s a friend of the family. But I’m so sorry that it happened,” Walker said.
Police said it was all captured on bodycam, and no officers fired any shots.
It all happened down the street from Gus Thornhill Funeral Home, where a grandmother was killed recently while leaving a viewing.
Police say the suspect was wanted out of Atlanta. They are not releasing his name right now.
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