A knife-wielding man was shot and killed by police Wednesday morning in a Canton neighborhood, according to the GBI.
Canton police officers were called to the Towne Mill subdivision off Fate Conn Road about 2:20 a.m. to investigate a report of a suspicious person in the area of Commerce Trail. At the scene, they found Toure Jones, 23, of Canton, with a knife, the GBI said in a news release.
Jones was told by officers to drop the knife, authorities said. When the man refused, the GBI said an officer used his Taser on him but it was ineffective. The GBI said Jones continued advancing toward officers with the knife despite commands to drop the weapon.
That’s when gunfire erupted and Jones was shot, the GBI said. Authorities rendered aid until EMS personnel arrived. He died at the scene.
No officers were injured.
Canton police have asked the GBI to take over the investigation. An autopsy will be performed by the GBI medical examiner.
Gary Atkins, who has lived in the subdivision for about four years, said he and his wife were jolted from sleep by the sound of their dog barking at a window around 2:15 a.m.
“My wife came to this here, the window, and as she started to raise the blind up she heard a gunshot,” Atkins told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from outside his home. “And when she looked outside, she could see the policeman approaching a body laying in that yard.”
Atkins said the normally quiet street was soon filled with law enforcement vehicles from Canton police, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office and the GBI. No one was allowed to leave or enter the neighborhood while the investigation was active overnight, unless they were escorted by police, he said.
“It’s been kind of shocking,” Atkins said. “It really has.”
Another neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said Towne Mill has seen its share of petty crimes. Recently, two men were caught on video surveillance jumping the fence at the community pool and stealing a pressure washer, and police have investigated strings of vehicle break-ins in the past.
In a large neighborhood, such crimes are to be expected, the man said. But he found the deadly shooting alarming.
“This is a good neighborhood with a good heart, so it kind of breaks your heart to think something like this is going on,” he said. “Obviously, a loss of life is a loss of life. At the end of the day, it’s just sad for everything, all around.”
The incident marks the 53rd officer-involved shooting investigated by the GBI this year. The AJC also tracks officer-involved shootings that don’t involve the GBI, and those numbers sometimes differ from the GBI’s tally.
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