Two additional suspects have been arrested in connection with the shooting of a sheriff’s deputy at Tanger Outlet mall, the GBI said Monday.
Dustin Terrell Heuatt, 29, was charged with numerous felonies, including aggravated assault on a peace officer, aggravated assault and armed robbery, GBI spokeswoman Nelly Miles said. James Hall Askew, 26, was charged with aiding and abetting, Miles said.
The GBI has not specified the exact roles Heuatt and Askew played in the shooting. Avery Richard, the man accused of shooting the deputy, was shot and killed Friday by FBI agents executing a search warrant in Atlanta.
Richard, 32, had been on the run since Wednesday, when authorities said he shot Banks County sheriff’s Deputy Robert Wilkins in Commerce.
Deputies had initially gotten a call about an armed robbery on the Atlanta Dragway. Not long after, Richard stole a car and drove toward the outlet mall.
When Wilkins tried to pull the car over, Richard got out and fired multiple times at the him, who was still in his patrol car, Miles said. Wilkins was taken to a nearby hospital in stable condition. His bulletproof vest stopped the bullet.
But the crime spree didn’t end there.
Richard, GBI officials said, had kidnapped and forced a woman at gunpoint to drive him to Atlanta on Thursday. The woman was found with minor injuries, Miles said. It was the victim’s description that led to a sketch of Richard and a $20,000 reward for his arrest.
In that time, local and federal officials launched a search across Northeast Georgia before spreading to Atlanta.
Officials had planned to serve the warrant at a home, but wound up at a shopping center at the intersection of Hamilton E. Holmes Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, where Richard shot an FBI agent, FBI spokesman Stephen Emmett said at a press conference.
Other agents fired back at least twice, killing Richard and striking a 32-year-old woman who was with the suspect, Emmett said. The woman and agent were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
“It was a high risk arrest,” Emmett said. “(FBI agents) went into it knowing he was armed and dangerous and that he’d shot a sheriff’s deputy.”
Richard had been released from prison in October on an aggravated assault conviction, according to the Department of Corrections.
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