The Austell man shot and killed by an off-duty immigration officer outside a Douglasville Walmart Sunday had a plastic airsoft gun, according to a police report obtained Thursday by AJC.com.
Johnathan Liddell, 45, was shot by Othello Lamar Jones in the parking lot of the Thornton Road store about 12:50 p.m., police said.
Officers responded after a man identifying himself as an ICE agent called 911 and said he shot at someone who had been following him, according to the report.
Douglasville police arrived to discover Liddell dead inside his red Chevrolet Cavalier. Sitting on top of the car was a black handgun that Jones said he removed from the back seat, the report said.
“I picked up the weapon and immediately noticed it was plastic,” a Douglasville officer wrote. “I removed the clip and it appeared to be an airsoft gun.”
Authorities identified Jones, 38, as an off-duty U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who was at the Walmart with his wife and three children.
It remains unclear what led to the fatal encounter but police said the altercation was captured by Walmart’s surveillance cameras.
ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said Jones, who works in the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, shot Liddell with a 9mm Glock he personally owned. Douglasville police and ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility are investigating.
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