AJC.com > Breaking News > Archives > 2005 > March > 11
Friday, March 11, 2005
Almeta Kilgo’s first-person account
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Almeta Kilgo, 37, is a computer programmer for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution whose car was stolen by a man believed to be Brian Nichols on Friday morning. Kilgo left her Decatur home about 8:45, listening to gospel CDs as she drove to work in her 2004 silver gray Mercury Sable. Here is her account:
I was coming down Marietta Street about 9:15 to turn onto Cone Street. I probably saw the wrecker — a white tow truck — behind me, but didn’t pay any attention. I turned into the Cone Street Garage. Nobody was checking IDs on the cars.
I went up to the fourth level. A few people had pulled in before me.
I was backing into my parking place when I noticed the tow truck up there on the fourth level. It was confusing. Was I going to get a ticket for something? Was he towing somebody? Was he getting ready to ask directions?
He pulled into a parking place across from me and jumped out of the tow truck as I was opening the car door. He came over, put a gun to my head, and told me to “move over.”
I just looked at him. I blanked out. This was crazy.
He said, “Hurry up, hurry up, get over.”
My car has a stick in the middle. I had to climb over that. I was still dazed. As I was climbing over, my mind was saying, “This is for real.”
I was trying to figure out how to get out.
I climbed over to the passenger side and he got in on the driver’s side. He said, “You better not open that door.”
He put my car in drive, and proceeded to go back down the ramp. I was in the car with him. He got down to the third level, but he didn’t turn to go on down the ramp. He went straight.
He said, “How do you get out of here? How do you get out of here?”
He had to stop. There was nowhere to go.
He said, “I tell you what — you get out and get in the trunk.”
He kept saying, “Get in the trunk.”
He popped my trunk.
I started to run, screaming at the top of my lungs.
Unfortunately, I fell. I was still screaming.
He came up, put a gun to my head, and said, “Shut up. Shut up.” He had the gun right in my face.
I was still screaming.
He kept saying, “Shut up.” I kept screaming.
At that point, I might as well. If I was going to go out, I was going out screaming.
For some reason, he turned around and went back to my car. I went over toward the elevator into the corner screaming.
It took a long time for anybody to get out of car and see what was wrong with me.
I saw him come back around the corner in my car with the trunk lid still up. If I had been thinking, maybe I could have set off the alarm. I was too upset. He came on around, and somehow got out of the garage. The trunk was wide open. Eventually a lady came to see about me, and a man came. I was totally out of it.
I said, “That guy in the tow truck just took my car. He put a gun to my head and took my car. Didn’t y’all see?”
The parking attendants were the last people to show up.
I think he took my car over to Centennial and carjacked Don (O’Briant, an AJC reporter whose green Honda Civic was the subject of police bulletins Friday). The manager of the parking garage came. They called police. We went down to the little office.
I kept looking at the clock. I had a 9:30 meeting. I was trying to get into work before the meeting.
It wasn’t too long before the police came and started asking me what happened. They went up to see the tow truck.
And it wasn’t long after that, Don came walking over. They were talking to me and he walked in. He was covered with blood. We knew then that the guy had ditched my car and took his.
I was sitting there in the office of the Cone Street Garage. The police, reporters, everybody was swarming around. I heard somebody say, “He’s killed two people down at the courthouse.”
That just tore me up.
Since this was a homicide investigation, a homicide detective came and talked to me and tried to get information about my car. They took me down to the police station on Ponce de Leon so they could get a formal written statement from me.
I guess I was down there until about 1 or 1:30.
A good friend of mine came to get me. I went over to some relatives’ house for awhile. Got home about six.
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Tow truck driver tells of dramatic confrontation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Deronta Franklin, a tow-truck driver, was waiting on a dispatch at Peachtree and Wall streets when he saw a dark SUV round the corner and hit the curb a few minutes after 9 a.m. The driver pulled into a parking deck behind him, and waited.
Seconds later, two police cars followed and stopped at the corner. One was an Atlanta police car and the other was Fulton County sheriff’s car, Franklin said. He showed them where the suspect was hiding.
“I pointed directly into the parking deck and they went in,” said Franklin, 37.
As the police cars entered the parking deck, the suspect burst through the mechanical arm and sped in.
“Three more officers [in vehicles] came up and said ‘Which way did he go?’ I told them ‘He went right up in there.’”
Franklin said the next thing he knew, the SUV driver was at his window pointing a gun at him.
In a calm voice, the gunman said “Get out of the truck.”
“You can have the truck,” Franklin said.
Franklin said the gunman was not visibly upset or sweating. He wore a turquoise green or blue suede jogging suit. Franklin watched as the man got in the tow truck and sped north on Peachtree Street, then took a left turn in the wrong direction on Walton Street, a one-way street near Five Points.
After hearing about the wake of death the gunman left, Franklin said “I’m surprised he didn’t shoot me then. I was just fortunate.”
A Tow Atlanta Inc. CEO Page Porter said the company’s truck was found at 98 Cone St.
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Visitors bureau: Isolated incident
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Operators of downtown Atlanta’s hotels and attractions put extra security personnel and procedures in place after Friday morning’s shootings at the Fulton County courthouse.
“We understand, as an industry, that we entertain millions of people a year, and the perception of danger in a city is a perception that might hurt the city,” said Bill Howard, spokesman for the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau. “There are many visitors in town for the SEC [basketball] championships this weekend. We need to make sure people remain safe and are able to move around the city. And we don’t want them to feel like there’s a lockdown going on.”
For the most part, visitors don’t seem to be judging Atlanta harshly for this one violent event, Howard said. He hopes other potential visitors, many of whom likely watched reports of the shooting on national news networks, will be similarly understanding.
“This was a random act by a person who is pretty desperate,” Howard said.
“People understand that unfortunately, those things can occur and can occur anywhere. I don’t think they’ll judge Atlanta particularly harshly.”
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Perdue offers $10,000 reward for apprehension
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The governor made the announcement hours after a shooting spree left three dead at the Fulton County Courthouse.
Authorities are searching for Brian Nichols, 33, last seen driving a carjacked green Honda Accord.
The governor’s announcement in part read, “Brian Nichols is presumed to be an extreme danger to the community and the citizens of Georgia and it is critical that he be taken into custody as soon as possible.”
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Hundreds of officers in manhunt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
More than 100 state troopers and other officers from hundreds of other agencies, including the FBI, were assisting in the search, but there were few leads, said G.D. Stiles, a Fulton County deputy chief. Offers of help from officers on their days off were pouring in.
”We’re getting assistance from a tremendous number of agencies and people,” Stiles said.
A law enforcement staging area was set up in the Roswell area, north of Atlanta, where suspect Brian Nichols had last lived before he was arrested on the rape and other charges.
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Family friend describes judge as ‘open’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Around 3 p.m., family friend and Fulton Juvenile Court Judge Sanford Jones stepped out of Rowland Barnes’ College Park home to speak on behalf of the family.
First, he passed along the family’s request for some privacy. Then he described the man who family, friends and neighbors had been mourning inside the modest, red-brick home since this morning.
Barnes was well-liked, a “prankster, a good judge and a good human,” said Jones, who has known Barnes for 25 years. Jones performed the marriage ceremony for Barnes and his second wife, Claudia, about 15 years ago.
“He did not change when he went on the bench. He did not get robotic,” Jones said. “He was open to everyone.
“That openness — that might have been part of the cause of this. He was so open,” said Jones, perhaps alluding to the fact that the suspect in the shootings was unshackled in the courtroom.
“It was his manner in court to treat everyone appropriately and with dignity, and when you left his court, you knew you had been treated that way,” Jones said.
“He was doing what he loved doing, but [his death] was premature.”
Claudia Barnes — who works for another judge as an administrative assistant — was in the courthouse when the shooting occurred, Jones said. She has worked in the court system for 25 years, serving as an assistant to Jones during some of that time, he said.
Jones described the family as “all very upset.”
“This is all very tragic, sudden and unexpected, but they’re doing better than I would be,” he said. He said Barnes is survived by his wife, two adult daughters, some stepchildren and two brothers.
Zell Miller lauds Judge Barnes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Retired U.S. Sen. Zell Miller was governor when he appointed Fulton Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes to the bench, and on Friday he recalled the judge as a straight shooting “man of great integrity.”
“I knew the judge well. It was one of my proudest appointments,” Miller said. “He’d had a lot of experience as a municipal judge in his younger days and he knew how to conduct a court,” Miller said. “All of the lawyers, on either side, they really liked appearing before him because they knew they’d get a fair shake and that he’d (conduct his court) with no nonsense and, in fact, sometimes with a little humor.
Barnes, Miller recalled, had a way of “putting the lawyers and the jury at ease and making it as good, as straight-forward a procedure as he could.”
“He was an excellent, excellent judge,” Miller said. “I’m very, very sorry this has happened to him.”
Atlanta police set up numbers for tips
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Assistant Atlanta Police Chief Alan Dreher released tipline numbers for people to call if they have information on the whereabouts of shooting suspect Brian Nichols.
If you have information on Nichols’ whereabouts, police ask that you call 404-730-7982, 404-730-7983, 404-730-7984, 404-730-7985, and a toll free number 1-888-6-FULTON.
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Police reopen streets; rush hour off to smooth start
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No major traffic problems are expected during rush hour this afternoon resulting from the shootings this morning at Fulton County Courthouse.
As of 3 p.m., police are stationed along I-75 near the Windy Hill exit and near I-285 to help facilitate traffic movement.
“That seems to be the biggest concentration as far as we’re aware,” said David Spear, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.
Streets in downtown Atlanta have reopened.
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SEC Dome crowd abuzz over shootings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The excitement level inside the Georgia Dome for the first game of the SEC Tournament was well below that of the rest of the downtown area, but that was due to subdued reaction to the Alabama-Mississippi game, not the courthouse shooting nearby.
Perry Perkins of New Orleans and his friend Lisa Perkins of Canyon Lake, Texas, took MARTA from Vinings at about 10:30 a.m. They saw police cars racing down a street at about 90 mph, Perry Perkins estimated, with no sirens or lights. “We just thought it was the Atlanta cops,” said Perry Perkins, who was wearing Mississippi State clothing.
They found out about the shooting from a friend as they approached the Dome, but didn’t turn back even with three helicopters hovering.
“You know it’s close, but it’s not in your parking lot,’ said Lisa Perkins. Added Perry Perkins, “You have to live your life.”
However, Lisa Perkins did think the Dome would be a perfect place “to come incognito. You’re at a sporting event and can come in and hide.”
But she added, “You’ve gotta have a ticket.”
Tickets were sold out.
Atlanta police at the Dome said fans were approaching them to ask if the man had been caught or what was happening.
Before the games began, some of the televisions in the bathrooms were tuned to CNN so fans could follow developments.
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Police still seek green Honda Accord
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Authorities are sharing more info about the hunt for shooting spree suspect Brian Nichols.
Deputy Atlanta Police Chief Alan Dreher said one weapon and shell casings have been found outside the downtown Fulton County Courthouse.
Authorities are still looking for a green Honda Accord, he told reporters this afternoon.
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Perdue statement laments loss of life
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue issued the following statement:
“Mary and I offer our condolences to the family, friends and associates of Judge Barnes and the brave criminal justice personnel who lost their lives today at the Fulton County Courthouse. These public servants dedicated themselves to delivering sound justice and gave their lives to upholding the principles of our legal system. We honor their service to Fulton County and our state.
“Judge Barnes was a conscientious judge who fully appreciated his role in making the ideals set forth in the Constitution and laws of this state tangible and meaningful to everyday citizens. He will be sorely missed.
“I encourage all Georgians to continue praying for the speedy recovery of those injured during today’s tragic events.”
Perdue directed all flags lowered to half-staff on all Capitol Hill buildings and grounds.
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Judge’s neighbor says ‘heart is broke’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
College Park resident Enriqueta R. Lineres, who lives next door to Judge Rowland Barnes, was walking back from the store about 11:30 a.m. when she saw a hearse and a police cruiser parked in front of Barnes’ house.
She asked a reporter standing in front of the house what was happening. When she heard the news, she immediately started crying.
“He is a good neighbor, Mr. Roland,” said Lineres, who moved to the neighborhood in 1998.
She said Barnes looked after her house when she had to return to Mexico, and he and his wife, Claudia, are always checking in on her.
“Oh. Jesus. Oh, Lord. Why?” Lineres said. “My heart is broke. My neighbor [Rowland Barnes] protected me.”
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Atlanta, DeKalb, Forsyth schools take precautions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Public School system has put four Buckhead schools under lockdown due to the manhunt under way for the suspect in the shooting at the Fulton County Courthouse: Jackson Elementary, Sutton Middle, Sara Smith Elementary and the Sara Smith kindergarten annex.
Additionally, all DeKalb County schools have been ordered to keep their exterior doors locked.
Under restricted lockdown, movement within the school continues as normal, but the doors are locked and manned by security personnel to restrict entry to the building. The decision on which schools to lock down was made based on the latest information APS has received from the Atlanta Police Department about the possible movement of the suspect, school officials said.
Fulton County schools are not in session today.
Atlanta had earlier put 36 schools under lockdown, including the four Buckhead schools. But shortly before 1 p.m. the district removed 32 schools from the lockdown list.
The Atlanta schools originally put under lockdown are under lockdown are:
Elementary Schools: Adamsville, Bethune, Blalock, Bolton Academy, Boyd, Brandon, Centennial Place, Garden Hills, Grove Park, Fain, Finch, Hill, Herndon, Jackson, Jones, Miles Oglethorpe, Peyton Forest, Rivers, Scott, Smith, Smith Kindergarten Annex, F.L. Stanton, Towns, Usher, White, Williams, Woodson, Carson Honors Preparatory.
Middle Schools: Harper/Archer, Kennedy, Sutton, Turner.
High Schools: Douglass, North Atlanta, Washington.
As a precaution, Clayton County school officials locked down the Brown Elementary School at 9771 Poston Road in Jonesboro.
“It is our understanding that [shooting suspect Brian Nichols] has relatives or that there is some family connection near the school and we just want to make sure our students are safe,” said school district spokesman Charles White.
Forsyth County officials put all schools in that county on lockdown at 12:35 p.m., Forsyth schools spokeswoman Jennifer Caracciolo said. Officials planned to release students at the regularly scheduled times Friday afternoon, she said.
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SEC tournament monitors crowd after shooting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 51 uniformed officers working security at the SEC tournament went on high alert Friday morning after the shootings at the Fulton County Courthouse.
Atlanta Police Lt. K.A. Anderson redeployed many of the Atlanta police officers, Georgia State Patrol and Fulton County Sheriff’s officers from inside to outside the Georgia Dome.
“We did it to monitor the crowd better in case the suspect did come in the area,” said Anderson, police coordinator for the Dome. There was no evidence that he did come near the Dome, Anderson said.
Officers received flyers with identifying information about the suspect they were looking for, and they monitored a common Georgia Dome radio frequency for updates.
SEC tournament director Brad Davis watched CNN coverage from a TV at courtside during warm-ups before the opening quarterfinal game between Alabama and Ole Miss. Dome officials had called Davis in his hotel room minutes after the shootings to discuss security plans.
The Georgia Dome’s 290 yellow-jacketed security officers were not redeployed, said Kevin Duvall, assistant general manager of the Dome.
SEC tournament security is usually a straightforward affair.
“It’s a real peaceful crowd,” Anderson said. “It’s a college crowd. It’s a family crowd.”
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Wounded deputy expected to survive
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dr. Jeffrey Salomone, one of the attending trauma surgeons at Grady Memorial Hospital, said the mortally wounded deputy was brought into the hospital at 9:24 a.m. with a single gunshot wound to the abdomen.
“He had no vital signs when he arrived here, and despite our resuscitative efforts, he was pronounced dead at about 9:34,” Salomone said. “About that time, a second Fulton County sheriff’s deputy arrived.”
The second deputy, Salomone said, “appeared to have a single gunshot wound to the head.”
Salomone said the bullet did not enter the deputy’s skull.
“She has a small bruise on her brain and some fractures around her face,” the doctor said. “It appears that after being shot, the deputy perhaps fell to the ground, receiving some of those fractures to her head.”
He said that while that deputy is in critical condition, “she is expected to survive the injuries.”
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Atlanta, DeKalb schools under lockdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Public School system has put four Buckhead schools under lockdown due to the manhunt under way for the suspect in the shooting at the Fulton County Courthouse: Jackson Elementary, Sutton Middle, Sara Smith Elementary and the Sara Smith kindergarten annex.
Additionally, all DeKalb County schools have been ordered to keep their exterior doors locked.
Under restricted lockdown, movement within the school continues as normal, but the doors are locked and manned by security personnel to restrict entry to the building. The decision on which schools to lock down was made based on the latest information APS has received from the Atlanta Police Department about the possible movement of the suspect, school officials said.
Fulton County schools are not in session today.
Atlanta had earlier put 36 schools under lockdown, including the four Buckhead schools. But shortly before 1 p.m. the district removed 32 schools from the lockdown list.
The Atlanta schools originally put under lockdown are under lockdown are:
Elementary Schools: Adamsville, Bethune, Blalock, Bolton Academy, Boyd, Brandon, Centennial Place, Garden Hills, Grove Park, Fain, Finch, Hill, Herndon, Jackson, Jones, Miles Oglethorpe, Peyton Forest, Rivers, Scott, Smith, Smith Kindergarten Annex, F.L. Stanton, Towns, Usher, White, Williams, Woodson, Carson Honors Preparatory.
Middle Schools: Harper/Archer, Kennedy, Sutton, Turner
High Schools: Douglass, North Atlanta, Washington.
As a precaution, Clayton County school officials locked down the Brown Elementary School at 9771 Poston Road in Jonesboro.
“It is our understanding that [shooting suspect Brian Nichols] has relatives or that there is some family connection near the school and we just want to make sure our students are safe,” said school district spokesman Charles White.
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Judge’s wife asks for privacy; neighbor in shock
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Judge Rowland Barnes’ neighbor, Sallie Richey, moved into their Colleg Park neighborhood 47 years ago. Barnes and his family moved into their one-story, red brick house soon after, said Richey, 90, whose daughter was friends with the judge’s daughter.
“He was a good neighbor,” she said. “We’ve been knowing him for more than 40 years, and everybody loved him.
“He was a lawyer in College Park for years,” Richey said. “When any of us had a little problem, we’d always go to Roland.”
She still was absorbing the news of Barnes’ violent death.
“I went to sleep last night with the TV on. I woke up a little after 9, and that’s all that was on,” she said.
The modest section of Lyle Road where Barnes lived is lined by older homes on small, tree-filled lots. About an hour after the shooting, nobody answered the door at the house, fronted by a porch with a swing.
Around noon, police pulled up in what appeared to be Barnes’ Isuzu Rodeo and parked it in the driveway.
At 12:50, College Park Police Deputy Chief Lewis B. Harper told a reporter that Claudia Barnes, the judge’s wife, had requested the media respect her privacy and that she did not want to make a statement at the time.
“She’s still coming to grips with it,” Harper said, then shaking his head added, “A thing like that in a courtroom.”
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Governor, Fulton sheriff pledge to catch suspect
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 12:45 p.m., Gov. Sonny Perdue and Fulton County Sheriff Myron Freeman briefed reporters outside Grady Memorial Hospital, pledging to bring suspect Brian Nichols to justice.
Freeman was tightlipped about details of the hunt for the suspect. “This is a very sad day for Fulton County…. our prayers go out to the families.”
Perdue said the state is assisting Fulton County, including agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and state patrol. Perdue, too, offered his condolences to those killed in Thursday’s shooting at the Fulton County Courthouse.
A hospital surgeon described unsuccessful attempts to revive one victim. A wounded sheriff’s deputy, who suffered facial injuries, was listed in critical condition. She is expected to survive, the Grady doctor said.
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SWAT police surround Sandy Springs building
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement officers have surrounded a commercial building and small apartment complex off of Roswell Road near Lake Placid Drive in the Sandy Springs area.
ATF and other federal agents, as well as local police dressed in SWAT gear, are patrolling the area along with at least one helicopter.
Police at the scene refused comment.
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‘You can’t stop every crazy guy’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton County public defenders Joshua Schiffer and Matthew Welch were in the courthouse when the shootings occurred. Both were directed to the ninth-floor sheriff’s office, where they were sequestered with other court employees while the building was searched.
“It was extremely frightening, harrowing, to not know if someone is in the courthouse with a gun,” Welch said.
They listened to chatter on the deputies’ radios and watched news reports of the incident while they waited. “Everybody was on their cell phones trying to get a handle on what had happened,” Schiffer said.
After about 30 minutes, they were told they could leave the building.
Both men said they felt safe in the courthouse. Usually two or three deputies are in a courtroom for a criminal trial, although at times there has been only one, Schiffer said.
“Every single day we come to work we trust them to protect us,” he said.
“They’ve never let me down.”
“People are prone to do very rash things sometime,” Schiffer said. “These incidents are going to happen every blue moon. You can’t stop every crazy guy.”
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Atlanta, DeKalb schools locked down
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Public School system has put 36 school under restricted lockdown due to the manhunt under way for the suspect in the shooting at Fulton County Courthouse. Additionally, all DeKalb county schools have been ordered to keep their exterior doors locked.
Under restricted lockdown, movement within the school continues as normal, but the doors are locked and manned by security personnel to restrict entry to the building. The decision on which schools to lock down was made based on the latest information APS has received from the Atlanta Police Department about the possible movement of the suspect, school officials said.
Fulton County schools are not in session today.
The Atlanta schools that are under lockdown are:
Elementary schools: Adamsville, Bethune, Blalock, Bolton Academy, Boyd, Brandon, Centennial Place, Garden Hills, Grove Park, Fain, Finch, Hill, Herndon, Jackson, Jones, Miles Oglethorpe, Peyton Forest, Rivers, Scott, Smith, Smith Kindergarten Annex, F.L. Stanton, Towns, Usher, White, Williams, Woodson, Carson Honors Preparatory.
Middle schools: Harper/Archer, Kennedy, Sutton, Turner.
High schools: Douglass, North Atlanta, Washington.
As a precaution, Clayton County school officials locked down the Brown Elementary School at 9771 Poston Road in Jonesboro.
“It is our understanding that [shooting suspect Brian Nichols] has relatives or that there is some family connection near the school and we just want to make sure our students are safe,” said school district spokesman Charles White.
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DeKalb judge recalls representing Nichols
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When DeKalb County Recorders Court Judge R. Joy Walker first heard Nichols’ name on the morning news, she said to herself, “how do I know that name? I know that name.”
Moments later, when Nichols’ picture flashed on the TV screen, she remembered.
“When I saw him, I said, ‘Oh my God, I represented him,’” said Wlker, chief judge of the court that handles traffic and county ordinance violations.
Walker, a former public defender, represented Nichols while he was on probation from 1996 to 1999 for felony drug charges in Cobb County. When he was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for possession of marijuana, she represented him at his probation revocation hearing.
“He was very respectable to me,” Walker said.
She said Nichols had a girlfriend at the time. “She was a very nice young lady, very respectable,” Walker said. The judge refused to revoke Nichols’ probation based on flimsy evidence, according to Walker.
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Police circle Clayton neighborhood
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Clayton County police officers circled a south Jonesboro neighborhood Friday morning where shooting suspect Brian Nichols may live.
The community of one-story brick houses on large lots is less than two miles from the Clayton County Jail.
A Clayton sheriff’s deputy was parked in front of nearby Brown Elementary School.
Permalink | Categories: Courthouse shooting
Tow truck driver tells of dramatic confrontation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Deronta Franklin, a tow-truck driver, was waiting for a dispatch at Peachtree and Wall streets in downtown Atlanta when he saw a dark SUV round the corner and hit the curb. The driver pulled into a parking deck behind him, and waited.
Seconds later, two police cars followed and stopped at the corner.
“I pointed directly into the parking deck and they went in,” said Franklin, 37.
The suspect burst through the garage gate and sped in.
“Three more officers [in vehicles] came up and said ‘Which way did he go?’ I told them ‘He went right up in there.’”
Franklin said the next thing he knew, the SUV driver was at his window pointing a gun at him. “He told me to get out of the truck and I told him he could have the truck,” Franklin said.
Franklin said the gunman was about 6 feet 1 inch, about 200 lbs, and was wearing turquoise green or blue suede jogging suit. Franklin watched as the man got in his truck and sped north on Peachtree Street, and took a left in the wrong direction on Walton Street, a one-way street.
After hearing about the wake of death the man left, Franklin said “I’m surprised he didn’t shoot then. I was just fortunate.”
A Tow Atlanta Inc. CEO Page Porter said the company’s truck was later found at 98 Cone St.
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Dozens of schools are closed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As many as 40 metro Atlanta schools were closed today during the manhunt for the courthouse shooting suspect.
Clayton County school officials locked down the Brown Elementary School at 9771 Poston Road in Jonesboro.
“It is our understanding that [shooting suspect Brian Nichols] has relatives or that there is some family connection near the school and we just want to make sure our students are safe,� said school district spokesman Charles White.
All Fulton County schools have also been closed.
Permalink | Categories: Courthouse shooting
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