A teenage family member has been identified as the suspect in the shooting death of a Coweta County sheriff’s deputy.
Danny Long, 17, is in the Fayette County Jail on murder and terroristic threats charges in connection with Tuesday night’s fatal shooting of Deputy Edmond Irvin, the GBI said Wednesday afternoon in a statement. Long and Irvin are cousins, according to the state agency, which is leading the investigation into the incident.
Coweta County Sheriff Lenn Wood told Channel 2 Action News the men “evidently had an argument about something.”
They were in the back of a house in the 500 block of Snowfall Terrace in Palmetto about 9:40 p.m. when “other family in the house heard the shots and saw him run out.”
Irvin, 25, died on the scene.
According to Wood, Irvin worked for the sheriff's office for several years, first in the county jail and recently in the field. A GoFundMe page was created to help his son go to college one day, and as of Friday afternoon, the page had raised more than $2,900 of its $10,000 goal.
Minutes after hearing two gunshots, neighbors told Channel 2 they heard the teen yelling and threatening to kill “every one of you.”
“I saw him approaching my mailbox telling me to get my you know what in my yard,” neighbor Lisa Hernandez told the news station. “And I said, ‘Excuse me! I’m in my yard.’ And then he took off running.”
Palmetto police officers responding to the scene identified the victim as a deputy, triggering a massive manhunt. Officers with assault weapons set up a roadblock and searched vehicles looking for the alleged shooter.
Long was tracked down about three miles from the scene on Collingsworth Road near I-85, Channel 2 reported.
“When he saw us there, he turned himself in to us,” Wood said.
A GBI crime scene truck and several agents were on the scene Wednesday.
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