Savannah police shot and killed a man Sunday evening after he allegedly ran toward an officer with a knife, officials said.
The GBI is investigating the death of James Allen Miller, 31, as an officer-involved shooting. The Savannah man was pronounced dead at a hospital after being shot in a neighborhood south of the city center.
According to the state agency, Savannah police responded to the neighborhood about 7:30 p.m. after getting a call about a man chasing people with a knife near Bordeaux Lane. They confronted the armed man, later identified as Miller, and tried to talk to him.
“Officers provided verbal commands and attempted to speak with Miller, who would not comply with the officers’ commands,” GBI special agent Chris DeMarco said in a news release. “Miller ran towards one of the officers. One officer fired a gun, hitting Miller.”
The officers and emergency medics attempted first aid before Miller was taken to the hospital, DeMarco said. No officers were injured, he said, and a GBI agent recovered a knife from the scene.
The case will be turned over to the Eastern Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office for review once it is complete. It is the 35th officer-involved shooting the GBI has investigated so far in 2022, nearly doubling last year’s pace.
It is also the second deadly shooting to involve the Savannah Police Department in one week. Robert Gadson, 35, died Tuesday after being shot three days earlier outside a downtown Savannah bar. According to the GBI, Gadson had been involved in an argument with a bouncer and was shot in an exchange of gunfire with two off-duty Savannah police officers, who had been working a security job nearby.
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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