In just the past six days, six Georgia police officers have been shot in the line of duty.
Two of them died. The two were answering a domestic violence call in Americus on Dec. 7 when both were shot in the head. The funeral for the second to die, Georgia Southwestern State University Officer Jody Smith, 26, is scheduled for Wednesday morning. The funeral for his close friend, 25-year-old Americus police Officer Nicholas Smarr, who was killed while performing CPR on Smith, was Sunday.
The man accused of shooting Smith and Smarr took his own life inside an Americus house as police closed in on Friday, said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation director.
The latest shootings came Monday night when two officers in Lavonia were wounded by a man they had stopped. Their injuries were not life-threatening, and their alleged assailant was arrested not longer after the incident, authorities said.
The man accused in the shootings had been out on bond in connection with an attempted murder charge in Greenville, S.C. Channel 2 Action News reported that Khari Anthony Dashaun Gordon, of Greenville, has a long criminal history.
Shortly after the traffic stop, Lavonia Officer Jeffery Martin and Capt. Michael Schulman realized the car they stopped had been reported stolen, and they were trying to arrest the suspect when he opened fire, police said.
Gordon, 22, was arrested not far from the scene of the shooting, the parking lot of a Zaxby’s restaurant near the I-85 exit. (Lavonia is about 90 miles northeast of Atlanta.) Police said the shooter had fled the scene on foot.
Earlier Monday, two police officers from the Middle Georgia city of Byron were shot during a gun battle as they tried to serve a drug warrant at a house in Fort Valley at about 2 a.m. The man in the house was shot to death.
Officer William Patterson was treated and released. Byron police said Tuesday that Officer James Wynn remains in the hospital for now but is expected to make a full recovery.
Since Nov. 1, nine police officers or sheriff’s deputies have been shot in Georgia. Five of them died.
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