Atlanta police shot a man who was allegedly firing in the direction of a group of children waiting at a bus stop Monday morning, officials said.
The incident happened in the 300 block of Skipper Place in the Collier Heights neighborhood around 7:15 a.m., Atlanta police said. It stemmed from a domestic situation in which the victim reported that a suspect was armed with a knife and a handgun, Deputy Chief Charles Hampton Jr. said at the scene. That victim was uninjured.
Jalissa Rattley, a witness at the scene, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she was in her car when she saw that man, identified by the GBI as 25-year-old Raphael Trammell, approaching the children with a gun in his right hand. He fired two shots in their direction, she said. The GBI later confirmed that Trammell fired “in the direction of a group of children waiting for their school bus.”
Officers were driving around the area searching for the suspect when one saw Trammell open fire toward the children, Hampton said. The officer immediately got out of his patrol vehicle and returned fire, striking the suspect at least once, Hampton said.
Trammell was taken to a hospital and was said to be stable.
Rattley said there were more than 10 children at the bus stop.
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“When I saw the man with the gun, I told them to run before he shot fire,” she said. “I held the horn and told the children to run. They ran, and that’s when he shot fire ... Nobody really was screaming; I’m glad about that. They actually moved when I said move. They moved fast, so they did good.”
Police have not determined why the man opened fire toward the children, Hampton said.
“This early in the morning, we know kids were en route to school, and again, it is troubling to hear that (children were fired upon),” he said. “But with the swift action of our officer, we were able to bring that to a successful conclusion.”
Hampton said officers recovered two firearms and a knife from the suspect.
The GBI has been asked to conduct an independent investigation. It’s the 46th officer-involved shooting the state agency has been requested to handle 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.
— Please return to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for updates.
