The GBI is investigating a shooting involving Decatur County deputies, who officials said returned fire when a gunman shot at law enforcement officers during a nine-hour standoff earlier this week.
Shannon Eugene Hall, a 46-year-old Bainbridge man, barricaded himself in a trailer at Wright’s Mobile Home Park along Old Whigham Road late Tuesday night, GBI officials said. According to the state agency, he shot at Decatur County deputies Tim Fowler, Vontrail Fletcher and Roderick Murphy, the first three officers who responded to reports that Hall was armed.
In a statement Thursday, the GBI said Hall continued to fire at other deputies, police officers and state troopers as they arrived on scene.
“Deputies fired back, but Hall was not shot,” an agency spokesperson said in the statement. “Hall shot two police vehicles and hit a resident’s home. No one was physically injured by gunfire.”
Hall was arrested at the end of the standoff and charged with aggravated assault, first-degree criminal damage to property and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
Authorities at the Decatur County Sheriff’s Office requested an independent GBI investigation into the officers’ use of force Wednesday. The state agency will also conduct an aggravated assault investigation against Hall, officials said in Thursday’s statement.
Decatur is a rural county in South Georgia just north of Tallahassee and the state’s border with the Florida Panhandle.
This marks the 48th officer-involved shooting the GBI has been asked to investigate so far this year. That’s 20 more than the agency had been tasked with by this time last year.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 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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