A police officer was wounded and a man was killed in an early morning gunbattle outside a DeKalb County apartment complex, the GBI said Thursday.
Agency spokeswoman Nelly Miles identified the man as 27-year-old Quintas Harris. He died hours after the shootout.
The officer, who police identified as R. Mason, was shot in the hand and is expected to be OK.
Officers were called to the Maple Walk Apartments near Decatur just after midnight on a report of a mentally ill man firing randomly, DeKalb police Lt. Lonzy Robertson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
When an officer arrived, Harris started running, Channel 2 Action News reported.
Three more officers responded shortly after that and Harris tried to get in a car. At that point, Harris started firing at the officers, triggering the gunbattle, according to police.
Four officers returned fire, striking Harris multiple times, police told The AJC.
The GBI is handling the investigation, which is standard protocol in use-of-force cases.
There have been 48 officer-involved shootings in the state so far this year. Last year, officers shot 77 people, killing 24 of them, according to numbers provided by the GBI.
Harris previously had several run-ins with law enforcement, according to police and court records.
In 2011, he was arrested in California four times within a four-month period on alcohol and drug charges. More recently, Harris was arrested in October 2013 in DeKalb on obstruction, drug and firearm charges, arrest records showed.
He was again arrested in June 2014 on a family violence charge and in September 2014 on a long list of charges, including stalking, obstruction and drug offenses.
On Wednesday, managers of the apartment complex called police because of his behavior, neighbors told Channel 2. Officers came to the complex, but at that time Harris did not have a gun nor was he threatening violence.
— Staff writer Alexis Stevens contributed to this article.
RELATED: Officer-involved shootings in Georgia total 40 so far this year after 3 incidents within 3 hours
EXCLUSIVE: Over the Line: Police shootings in Georgia
INTERACTIVE: Mapping officer-involved shootings
Know what’s really going on with crime and public safety in your metro Atlanta community, including breaking news, trial coverage, trends and the latest on unsolved cases. Sign up for the AJC’s crime and safety newsletter delivered weekly to your inbox.
In other news:
About the Author
