A College Park man who shot himself while fleeing police this week was released with a ticket, police told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday.
Fulton County police pursued a lone car thief to a house in a subdivision Wednesday. Apparently when the police showed up, the other people in the house — at least one who was in the possession of drugs — fled with the thief out the back door, Lt. Scott McBride told The AJC.
One of them dropped a Taurus .40-caliber pistol and 37-year-old Antonio Maurice Martin stopped and picked it up, McBride said. He said Martin was not the suspected car thief.
“When he was putting it his pocket, it went off and shot him in the leg,” McBride said. “If he hadn’t picked up the gun, he would not have been arrested.”
Martin was charged with being a felon in possession of a handgun because of previous convictions. He has past arrests for illegal drugs, child abandonment, robbery and theft, according to records and police.
Police also recovered eight ounces of marijuana from the property.
Martin is to appear before a judge on the ticket, which could result in jail time, in February, McBride said.
The police ended up in the neighborhood near College Park when a theft victim reported to 911 he had trailed some men who had stolen his Chevrolet Avalanche in Union City to the neighborhood, according to the police report.
Initial reports were a Fulton County police SWAT team was sent to a Vernier Drive neighborhood off of Roosevelt Highway after shots were fired at officers late Wednesday morning.
The reports caused nearby Feldwood Elementary School to report it was on a “soft lock-down.”
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