Authorities arrested a Riverdale teen wanted in the fatal shooting of a Clayton County sheriff’s deputy.
Jonathan Bun, 17, was taken into custody at dusk Wednesday following a massive search that included officers from several dozen jurisdictions, Clayton police spokeswoman Tina Daniel said. Surrounded by law enforcement, Bun was transported by ambulance to Southern Regional Hospital -- the same place where 55-year-old deputy Richard “Rick” Jerome Daly was pronounced dead just hours earlier.
Daly’s death marks the first time a Clayton County law enforcement officer was killed in the line of duty, Sheriff Kem Kimbrough told reporters early Thursday morning.
“We are devastated,” Kimbrough said. “For us to have never lost an officer before this was a phenomenal streak of good luck. And good luck, like everything else, has its time and its limits.”
Outside the hospital, Channel 2 Action News interviewed Joyce Daly, the slain officer's mother.
"He loved his job," Joyce Daly told the station. "He was a Christian, and that’s what is helping me get through all of this. He just wanted to help people."
Daly said she was still in shock over the loss of her son, the oldest of six children.
"He took care of them, he took care of us, he just did everything for us and for me and everything," she said.
Kimbrough said Daly was staunchly devoted to his family.
“Several times we had discussed assignments and opportunities he could’ve taken to advance his career,” he said. “But his first thought was always his family, and we admired him and respected him for that.”
And Daly’s enthusiasm for policing was an influence on his son, who is a Fayette County deputy.
Bun, however, has had a clouded past that authorities hope to sort out through juvenile records.
“There’s a lot of very sketchy information about him at this point,” Kimbrough said. “I’m sure that there will be a picture that develops of him in more detail as time goes on.”
The teen, wanted for an unrelated armed robbery, was pulled over by the 25-year law enforcement veteran around 3 p.m.
Deputies from the sheriff’s fugitive squad were looking to serve an arrest warrant on Bun and spotted him getting into a car near his home near Church Street, Kimbrough said.
From their unmarked car, the fugitive team members followed arrest protocol and called for a patrol car to make a traffic stop.
Daly was one of the deputies in that patrol car.
The three cars – the car Bun was riding in with an acquaintance, the unmarked car, and Daly’s patrol car – all stopped near the intersection of East Fayetteville and Walker roads, just west of Riverdale Road.
When Daly approached the passenger side of the car where Bun was seated, “Mr. Bun allegedly stepped out of the passenger’s side and began firing his weapon, striking Deputy Daly,” Kimbrough said.
Although Daly was wearing a ballistic vest, one bullet hit his shoulder and another, authorities believe the fatal blow, pierced his abdomen just below the body armor, severing Daly’s aorta, authorities said.
Bun allegedly ran from the car, disappearing into a nearby tree line as Daly’s fellow deputies fired at the fleeing teen.
Kimbrough said deputies quickly surrounded the large wooded area and an alert went out for law enforcement officials to look out for Bun.
Over the next several hours, law enforcement officers from local, state and federal agencies across the area poured into Clayton County to help establish a perimeter around the wooded area where Bun was hiding, Kimbrough said.
“Believe it or not, old-fashioned police work helped,” he said. “Once units arrived, they established a perimeter so he could not leave. And as more units arrived, they did a sweep of the area … all the tactical units walked through the woods and walked right to him.”
Bun sustained biting injuries to his head and neck from a police dog during the capture, authorities said.
“He was actively hiding and attempting to elude law enforcement,” Kimbrough said, citing how the teen was bitten.
But Bun’s injuries are not believed serious.
Meanwhile, a road block set up at East Fayetteville between Walker Road and Highway 314 was teeming with law enforcement into the night while police choppers circled over the densely wooded area. Residents of the neighborhood and families and friends trying to visit or pick up rides from the area were forced to wait for hours, in some cases.
Sherry Glover's 12-year-old, Christopher, was among those stranded at day camp at the Virginia Burton Gray Recreation Center, not far from where police halted all traffic on the south end of East Fayetteville Road.
"At least I know he's safe," Burton said as she watched nearly a dozen Fulton County police vehicles drive past, blue lights whirring.
The shooting occurred not far from where Bun lived with his parents and two younger sisters.
Bun's family moved into the Church Street apartments in Riverdale about a year ago, said Garrett Anderson, who resides in the same complex. The suspect didn't join them until about two months later, he said.
Anderson said he had not seen Bun in about two weeks.
"There was some sort of fight with his mother," he said. "He left and hadn't been back since."
A person who answered the phone at the family's residence declined comment.
Police questioned both Bun’s parents Wednesday evening.
Bun was wanted for an incident that occurred Jan. 27 at Los Amigos Gifts & Things on Old Dixie Road in Forest Park. According to Clayton police, Bun followed an employee into the store's office and produced a handgun, demanding money from the register. He escaped with $200.
Wednesday's shooting highlights a disturbing trend. Nationally, the number of officers killed while on duty rose 37 percent in 2010, to 160 from 117 the previous year, according to numbers compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit that tracks police deaths. Eight of those killed worked in Georgia, including a Georgia state trooper, Chadwick LeCroy, shot two days after Christmas off Bolton Road in Atlanta.
In March, Athens Senior Police Officer Elmer "Buddy" Christian, a father of two young children, was fatally shot after pulling over a carjacking suspect. Jamie Hood was also charged in the shooting of another Athens officer, Tony H. Howard.
Kimbrough acknowledged the other police deaths and said Daly’s absence would weigh heavily on the Clayton County community.
“Never was Rick without a smile,” Kimbrough said. “He just seemed to be happy to live life. It’s just a shame that those who love life and are willing to put their lives on the line for others are the ones who have to suffer this sort of fate.”
The GBI is investigating the fatal shooting, as well as the events that followed, including the return fire from Daly’s fellow deputies on the scene and how Bun was captured, Kimbrough said.
Wednesday night, Bun was in police custody at the hospital. When he is released, GBI agents will question him at Clayton County police headquarters. Then Bun will be taken to the Clayton County jail for processing before being moved to an undisclosed location for holding, authorities said.
Please return for updates.
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