A two-hour police standoff at a West Georgia mobile home came to an end Thursday evening when Carroll County deputies opened fire on a man trying to ignite a Molotov cocktail, authorities said.
The GBI is investigating the shooting, which happened shortly before 6:40 p.m. in Carrollton.
The standoff began about two hours earlier when deputies tried serving a temporary protective order on 41-year-old Bryce Jarrod Suter, GBI spokeswoman Nelly Miles said in a news release. The protective order stemmed from Suter allegedly making terroristic threats and violating the state’s family violence act, the GBI said.
When deputies arrived at the mobile home along Park West Drive, the Carrollton man barricaded himself inside and threatened to “blow up” the deputies at the scene, Miles said.
Deputies tried to negotiate with him from outside the home, but Suter refused to come out, authorities said.
The sheriff’s office obtained a search warrant to enter the home and continued efforts to coax Suter outside. When that didn’t work, deputies sent tear gas into the mobile home, but Suter remained inside, according to the GBI.
“At approximately 6:18 p.m., deputies breached the front door of the residence,” Miles said. “As deputies breached the door, Suter began lighting a Molotov cocktail, at which time two Carroll County sheriff’s deputies fired their guns multiple times, striking Suter.”
Suter was treated at the scene before being taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, officials said. No deputies were injured during the standoff. Once the GBI’s investigation is complete, the state agency’s findings will be turned over to the Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s office, Miles said.
Thursday’s incident is the 63rd shooting involving a law enforcement officer the GBI was asked to investigate this year and the second in as many days. On Wednesday afternoon, a 28-year-old Austell man was shot and killed by a Cobb County police officer after fleeing a traffic stop, authorities said.
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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