An armed man was in critical condition after being shot by an Atlanta police officer early Thursday in a Midtown parking lot, authorities said.
The incident happened about 3 a.m. in a parking lot at the intersection of Crescent Avenue and 13th Street.
Atlanta police Capt. Paul Guerrucci said officers were in the area assisting with crowd control as several nearby clubs closed for the evening when they were flagged down by several people who said there was a large fight in an adjacent parking lot.
Guerrucci said there were several hundred people in the lot as the fight escalated into gunfire.
“Officers responded and encountered an armed gunman,” Guerrucci told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “During that encounter, additional shots were fired, and as a result of that, the officer shot the armed subject.”
Guerrucci said that person was shot in the chest, and was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition.
A second person was in stable condition after being shot in the leg, but Guerrucci said investigators had not determined who shot that person.
“All the specifics are still under investigation as to who actually shot who,” Guerrucci said.
The officer who shot the man in the chest was not injured, and was placed on standard administrative leave.
The names of the officer and the people wounded were not immediately available.
Krezzia Guerrero and Nashai Jones, both from Carrollton, were among those in the parking lot when the fight broke out.
“We were right there,” said Guerrero. “There as a crow bar involved, and the next thing I know, guns. I just heard shooting, a lot.”
Guerrero described to the AJC a chaotic scene as the gunfire broke out.
“Everybody was running, falling, yelling,” she said. “Some girl was crying as she was running.”
Jones said the incident “makes you not even want to come out anymore. I don’t even want to go out and do anything.”
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