The GBI has identified the passenger of a stolen U-Haul involved in a pursuit that led a Smyrna police officer to fire at the vehicle when its driver rammed a patrol car Monday afternoon.
About 3:30 p.m., officers learned that the U-Haul pickup truck was spotted inside the city limits, the Smyrna Police Department said in a Facebook post. A pursuit ensued after police located the truck.
During the chase, the suspect committed “several traffic violations,” the department said. Officers attempted a traffic stop, which is when the U-Haul struck a Smyrna patrol car, the post said.
One officer fired several shots at the vehicle, which crashed near West Spring and Roswell streets. A man and woman got out of the vehicle and ran away, police said.
Officers were able to catch the woman after a brief chase, but they are still searching for the man, the post said.
The GBI has identified the woman as Amanda Yanez but has not released additional details about her. As of Tuesday morning, she had not been booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center, online records show. Smyrna police have not responded to requests for more information from AJC.com.
No one was injured or struck by gunfire, the department said.
The GBI was asked to investigate the incident as an officer-involved shooting, making this the 65th such investigation the agency has opened in 2020. It’s the second officer-involved shooting investigation the GBI has opened within the past 24 hours.
Smyrna police and Cobb County police will handle the investigations into the stolen vehicle and crash.
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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