Seven people arrested during an East Point police drug search in which an officer fatally shot a man have been charged with violating a municipal code.
Dwight Person, 54, was shot Thursday afternoon when, according to police, he made a threatening gesture at a female officer “that put her in fear of her safety.” The officer, who has not been identified, fired one shot and hit Person.
He was treated and the scene and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
He was among a number of people inside the house in the 3100 block of East Point Street when police special operations officers entered to serve a search warrant for drugs, East Point police spokesman Lt. Cliff Chandler said.
“Our special operations unit had been conducting a narcotics investigation at that house,” Chandler said.
Police said the shooting happened as soon as officers entered the home.
Barick Vaughn said police had no reason to be inside the house, let alone shoot anyone.
"I saw my folks die for nothing," Vaughn told the AJC.
Vaughn and Juan Ballard, who both live at the house, said police entered the house and there were a few minutes of chaos, then everything was silenced by the gunshot.
"They didn't even know he was shot," Ballard said. "There were policemen saying, ‘Who fired that shot?'"
The search for drugs or a weapon was cut short after the shooting, police said.
“Once the shooting happened, our officers stopped their search and turned their focus to trying to save the man’s life,” Chandler said.
Police arrested seven people, charging them with operating a dive, a violation of a municipal code.
Two were released on bond, Chandler said, and five others attended a municipal hearing Friday.
The case was turned over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, as is standard in all police-involved shootings.
A second search warrant was issued to allow GBI agents to investigate the scene and look through the house, police said.
GBI findings may lead to more charges against the people arrested Thursday, Chandler said.
But Person’s family members demanded answers, saying he had gone to the house to visit nephew Juan Ballard.
"We just want to know what happened," sister-in-law Minnette Ballard told Channel 2 Action News.
"I don't know how she could have shot him," the man's mother, Verdelle Person, told Channel 2. "Ain’t no way in the world he would have fought with an officer, and that's from the bottom of my heart."
The officer involved has been placed on administrative leave, Chandler said.
--Staff writer Alexis Stevens and dispatch editor Angel K. Brooks contributed to this article.
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