Gwinnett County officer shot to death responding to call, agency says

A Gwinnett County police officer died Sunday morning after being ambushed while responding to a call, the agency said.

A second officer was critically injured in the shooting, but officers were able to return fire, striking and injuring the suspect, police said Sunday afternoon.

At 7:30 a.m., the officers were dispatched to the Holiday Inn Express Atlanta on East Park Place Boulevard in reference to a fraud call, a police spokesperson said.

At the scene, two officers were shot, police said.

“The officers returned fire, injuring the subject,” Cpl. Angela Carter said in an emailed statement. “The officers and the suspect were transported to a local hospital with injuries.

“One of the officers has succumbed to their injuries and has died,” Carter said. “The second officer remains in critical but stable condition.”

The names of the officers were not released. The shooter’s name and condition was also not released.

The GBI was requested to investigate by Gwinnett police, and agents were on scene, spokesperson Sara Lue told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Officer-involved shooting is a term used by the GBI and can be broadly applied in any number of situations.

The Gwinnett officer becomes the sixth from the agency killed in the line of duty, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page which tracks law enforcement deaths.

Before Sunday, the last Gwinnett police officer killed was Antwan Toney on Oct. 20, 2018.

Toney was killed while responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle near Shiloh Middle School in unincorporated Snellville, according to police.