View Full Version : 2 cops killed in 'ambush' in Georgia
Ret10Echo
01-16-2008, 10:08
Thoughts and prayers out to the families....
Sad state of affairs.
2 cops killed in 'ambush' in Georgia
By DANIEL YEE, Associated Press Writer
6 minutes ago
Two off-duty DeKalb County police officers were killed early Wednesday in what appeared to be an ambush at an apartment complex in what residents described as a high-crime neighborhood, police said.
The two officers, working as security guards at the complex, were investigating a suspicious person at the complex when shots rang out, DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton told The Associated Press.
Authorities were searching for two males seen running from the scene. Police were using dogs and a helicopter to search for the suspects.
"We've got every able body looking for them," Bolton said.
Later, at a news conference, Bolton addressed the gunmen: "If I were you, I'd turn myself in. The sun's coming up. Before sundown, we're gonna find you."
He told reporters the dead officers were wearing their police uniforms.
Police were called to the scene around 12:40 a.m., Bolton said. One officer was dead at the scene. The other was pronounced dead at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, he said.
Bolton said the shooting looked like an ambush.
"It just appeared that they were gunned down without a chance," he said.
Schools were locked down during the investigation in the area about 6 miles east of downtown Atlanta.
Patreka Anderson, a resident of the complex, said she was awakened by the gunshots but did not think anything of it because the neighborhood around the Glenwood Gardens apartment complex is a high-crime area with a lot of drug activity and prostitution.
"We always hear shooting," she said. "I didn't think that was any big deal."
Teofil Taut, who said he has owned the 176-unit complex for about two years and lives in one of the buildings, said he hired police as part-time security officers in December to keep homeless people from breaking into the apartments.
Another resident, nurse's assistant LaShawn Corbin, said she is considering moving, even if it means paying more for an apartment.
"We don't expect the people who try to protect us to be hurt so seriously," she said. Corbin said she would fear leaving her children there "because the person who did it has no conscience for human life."
The slain officers' names were not immediately released. Bolton said one was a two-year veteran and the other had been on the force for four years.
"It's a challenging day for us," Bolton said. "However, today's act of senseless violence is a display of what we're seeing around the country where people will shoot down a police officer without regard to any repercussions."
Ret10Echo,
Thanks for posting that.
The two officers, working as security guards at the complex, were investigating a suspicious person at the complex when shots rang out, DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton told The Associated Press.
This is very sad. I had to call 911 just last night here at my complex, due to a very strange man walking past my apartment window, and acting bizzare. I was unsure what to do or say to the policemen that responded, but just did my best. (and I pm'd a QP just in case...)
LEO's have my utmost respect.
Holly
This is a very bad state of affairs. I hope they catch them quick and that the perps get their due.
Godspeed and RIP to the Officers.
Smokin Joe
01-16-2008, 17:55
Rest in Peace.
I'll be curious to see what happened. I know gunning down 2 officers is not difficult for a trained individual but it is a rare event when a thug gets 2 officers.
Prayers out to the families.
Ret10Echo
01-17-2008, 08:19
Mostly a rehash of the original story..but with a few added lines concerning the arrest of a suspect.
R10
Georgia Police Arrest Suspect in Killing of Two Officers
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
DECATUR, Ga. —
Police Officers Ricky Bryant Jr. and Eric Barker were making extra money off duty by patrolling an apartment complex, looking out for homeless people breaking into empty units.
They were gunned down early Wednesday morning at the Glenwood Gardens apartments, where residents say drugs and prostitution are rampant. Some of the residents were awakened by the gunfire but initially thought little of it.
"We always hear shooting," Patreka Anderson said. "I didn't think that was any big deal."
Bryant and Barker, both married fathers of four, were investigating a suspicious person when they were shot shortly after midnight, said their boss, DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton.
He didn't provide details about the shooting or say whether the officers returned fire, but said they were in their police uniforms and suggested they had been ambushed.
"They never had a chance," Bolton said.
One officer died at the scene; the other was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Police arrested a 32-year-old man later Wednesday and charged him with murder, said Officer Jonathan Ware, a DeKalb County police spokesman. Authorities were still looking for suspects Wednesday night, he said.
Ware said he did not have details on what led investigators to arrest Herbie Deshawn Durham hours later, other than "hard police work." He said authorities had received cooperation from the public, including residents of the apartment complex.
It was not immediately clear whether Durham had an attorney.
Police used dogs and a helicopter to search for the suspects, and schools were locked down during the investigation in the area about 6 miles east of downtown Atlanta.
At an afternoon news conference, Bolton called the shootings a "must-solve crime" and urged witnesses to come forward.
"Don't lie to us," he said. "Tell us the truth."
A $55,000 reward was offered for information leading to arrests in the case, county officials said.
"These police officers were heroes, they were committed and dedicated to law enforcement," DeKalb County Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones said. "We will not rest until those folks responsible for this are apprehended and justice is served."
Teofil Taut, who said he has owned the 176-unit complex for about two years and lives in one of the buildings, said he hired police as part-time security officers in December to keep homeless people from breaking in.
Another resident, nurse's assistant LaShawn Corbin, said she is considering moving, even if it means paying more for an apartment.
"We don't expect the people who try to protect us to be hurt so seriously," she said. Corbin said she would fear leaving her children there "because the person who did it has no conscience for human life."
Bryant, 26, was a two-year veteran of the department, and Barker, 33, had worked there for four years.
"It's a challenging day for us," Bolton said. "However, today's act of senseless violence is a display of what we're seeing around the country where people will shoot down a police officer without regard to any repercussions."
Defender968
01-17-2008, 11:28
Rest in peace brothers, thank you for your service and your sacrifice...
my thoughts to the families they leave behind.
Rest in Peace.
I'll be curious to see what happened. I know gunning down 2 officers is not difficult for a trained individual but it is a rare event when a thug gets 2 officers.
Prayers out to the families.
I would agree with you on a typical encounter on the streats, but we in law enforcement have been seeing a rise in Ambushes, and these thugs are practicing more than you'd think. They have 2 in custody and are looking for one more, if they had 3 shooters, getting the drop on two realitively young officers is not as hard as it sounds unfortunately, remember they probably did not have a weapon drawn if they were simply looking for a suspicious individual, if the murderers.....er.... suspects did, that's a bad way to go into a gunfight, not that the officers did anything wrong.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/16/08
DeKalb County Police have arrested a second man in the shooting deaths of two off-duty officers and continue to search for "at least one more suspect," Chief Terrell Bolton said.
In a news conference Thursday morning, Bolton said the man arrested was Deanthius Jamal Johnson, also known as Little Man, of Decatur. Johnson turned himself in at the DeKalb County Jail early Thursday. He said Johnson was taken to the jail by a family member.
Johnson, 28, is charged with two counts of murder.
His arrest follows that of Herbie DeShawn Durham, 32, who was charged with two counts of murder Wednesday evening after being questioned at police headquarters, Bolton said.
The chief on Wednesday refused to elaborate on any motive for the killings or how Durham was identified and captured. Bolton released few details about Durham, except to say he had a criminal record. The chief instead focused on the department's anguish. "This is the beginning of the healing process," he said.
A witness said the two off-duty DeKalb County police officers, who were moonlighting as security guards, were apparently frisking a man in an apartment complex parking lot moments before both officers were shot and killed early Wednesday morning
Derrick Murchison, 38, said he looked out his window and saw that both officers Ricky Bryant Jr. and Eric Barker had pulled up in their personal vehicles they used in their off-duty job as security guards at the complex.
"They had asked the dude for his license...I looked out and he was on the hood like this," Murchison said, demonstrating that the man was standing with his hands extended on top of the car.
Murchison said he went back to playing a video game but then his girlfriend, Michelle Payne, jumped up and said she heard shots. He pushed her down away from the window. "Then it stopped," he said.
In the parking lot outside, Bryant and Barker lay mortally wounded. Their killer or killers fled, leaving only the echo of gunshots outside Murchison and Payne's bedroom window.
Gunshots are frequent near their Glenwood Gardens apartments in southwest DeKalb. But not two dead police officers.
"I was just so hysterical I had to let my daughter-in-law talk to [911 operators], because I just saw two bodies lying out there in the parking lot," Payne said Wednesday.
The officers' deaths fueled a ferocious manhunt that stretched from southwest DeKalb to downtown Atlanta and beyond. More than 100 law enforcement personnel combed yards, blocked off streets and stopped traffic to search car trunks and people. Atlanta police officers closed down a mall near the Five Points MARTA station after getting a tip about possible suspects.
DeKalb officials and community leaders decried what one called "an outright cowardly act." Authorities offered a $60,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the killings. New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Bishop Eddie Long put up $10,000 of the reward, with other contributors including the U.S. Marshal's office and talk show host Michael Baisden.
Both Bryant, 26, and Barker, 33, had families. Earlier in the day, their deaths left the DeKalb police chief literally shaking his fist in anger.
Anyone who could see the officers "lie there on the asphalt in the middle of the night...and you remain silent, you're not my brother, you're not my sister if you go down that road," Bolton said during a news conference earlier in the day at the site of the killings.
He had a blunt message for the killers: "We're going to watch, we're going to fight, we're going to pray, but most of all we're going to hunt them down."
Barker had been with the force for four years, Bryant for two. Authorities said they were killed while responding to a suspicious person report.
Bryant, father of four, juggled multiple jobs, according to Tiffany Wiggins, assistant manager of the Village at Stone Mountain apartments. Bryant offered courtesy security assistance in exchange for a discount on rent, she said.
Bryant moved into the complex about two months ago and was often called to help with domestic disputes and arguments, according to Forrest Minor, a security officer who worked with Bryant at the complex.
Wiggins said Bryant was separated from his wife and that his young children stayed with him off and on for weeks at a time. They often played at the apartment playground.
Wiggins said Bryant was shy and funny, and liked to go the movies. She said Bryant's oldest daugther often called him on his cell phone to check on him.
Ranardo Seamon, a leasing agent at the complex, said one of Bryant's rooms was filled with toys and remote control cars for the children.
Minor, the security officer, said he saw Bryant Tuesday evening as he left to go to the apartment complex where he was killed. He said Bryant had just finished an overtime shift with county police.
"He was telling me he was going to see us later to help us out," said Minor.
Though Bryant had lived at the Village at Stone Mountain just a short while, employees there had grown close to him. Some went home early Wednesday, distraught over his death.
Bolton, the county police chief, said both officers were in uniform at the time of the shooting.
Teofil Taut, who owns the apartment complex, said he hired the officers about two months ago after encountering problems with homeless people breaking into vacant units. About half of the 176 units are occupied, Taut said.
"What a horrible, horrible way to end your life," Bolton said. "Apparently, they had no chance," he said, adding that the officers were "like my sons."
Police questioned several residents of the Glenwood Gardens apartments, including Derrick Murchison and tenants from an adjoining apartment.
Wednesday's shootings marked the first time two metro Atlanta officers were killed in the same incident since July 23, 1999, when two Cobb SWAT officers were killed by shotgun in a raid on an Austell-area house.
Ret10Echo
01-18-2008, 11:30
3rd suspect arrested in officers' deaths
52 minutes ago
Authorities arrested a third suspect and searched for at least one other man Friday in the killings of two police officers gunned down as they worked as off-duty security guards at an apartment complex.
William Maurice Woodard, 26, was arrested at a traffic stop, DeKalb County Deputy Police Chief Mike Burrows said during a news conference.
The DeKalb Sheriff's Office issued warrants Friday charging Woodard and Mario O'Brian Westbrook, 31, with murder. Burrows said authorities are still looking for Westbrook.
DeKalb County Police officers Ricky Bryant Jr., 26, and Eric Barker, 33, were killed early Wednesday in an apparent ambush in a parking lot at the Glenwood Gardens apartment complex.
Two other men already arrested, Herbie DeShawn Durham, 32, and Deanthius Jamal Johnson, 28, were charged with two counts of murder.
Residents say drugs, prostitution and gunfire are common at the apartment complex in a suburb six miles east of downtown Atlanta.
Police have not released a motive for the killings and have declined to say if there are other suspects.
Both slain officers were married fathers and were wearing their uniforms when they were shot. They were hired in December as part-time security to prevent break-ins, said Teofil Taut, the owner of the 176-unit complex who also lives in one of the buildings.
Hope that these S***t-for brains "suspects" get the book thrown at them! And that the "guards" look the other way while they are incarcerated!:mad:
Holly