One person was killed and a suspect was arrested after a gunman hijacked a suburban bus in Atlanta and led police on a chase Tuesday, in the second of two major crimes that rocked the city one after the other, officials said.
Police were just wrapping up a briefing after three people and a gunman were shot at a downtown mall food court when a 911 call of an emergency on a bus came in around 4:30 p.m., Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said.
A responding officer confronted the gunman, who "forced the bus driver to drive off," Schierbaum said.
Seventeen people were on the Gwinnett County Transit bus, including the driver, as police chased it through three jurisdictions in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties before a large BearCat police vehicle disabled and trapped it, officials said. The passengers then got off.
The first call about gunfire and hostages on the bus was near 45 Ivan Allen Jr. Blvd. in Atlanta, and the bus came to a final stop near 5107 Hugh Howell Road in Stone Mountain in DeKalb County, police said — a distance of around 20 miles.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens praised 911 call center officials and police as they were "trying to navigate what was a gunman with a gun to the head of a bus driver, saying, ‘Don’t stop this bus or else worse will happen.'"
"I mean, this seems like the movies," Dickens said, adding that but for law enforcement's actions, it could have been worse.
Police did not identify the dead person pending notification of next of kin. The person was found shot as officers cleared the bus and died at a hospital, police said.
Dickens said the circ*mstances of how the person was killed were not fully known. No other injuries were reported on the bus, police said.
Arrested was Joseph Grier, 39, most recently of Stone Mountain, a city east of Atlanta, police said.
"We don’t know yet" why he hijacked the bus, Schierbaum said. He said Grier is a convicted felon who has been arrested 19 times.
Atlanta police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are investigating, police said.
It was not immediately clear whether Grier had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
During the chase, one person called 911, but the call ended, police said. A relative of a person on the bus called police and reported getting text messages from that passenger, and then someone on the bus called 911, and the line was left open, police said.
Schierbaum said information was continually fed to Atlanta police, as well as police in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties, and to the Georgia State Patrol.
"You saw the collective effort and dedication of law enforcement working today to save lives, to rescue hostages, to make sure this ended," Schierbaum said.
Earlier in the day at the Peachtree Center Mall food court in downtown Atlanta, a gunman shot three people before he was shot and wounded by a police officer, officials said.
That shooting happened around 2:15 p.m., a little more than two hours before the 911 call about the bus came in.
The 34-year-old suspect, who is believed to have had a “brief altercation” with one of the victims, pulled out a gun and shot that person, Schierbaum said. He then shot the two other people.
The GBI identified the suspect later Tuesday as Jeremy Malone. Malone was treated and released into police custody after he was shot by an Atlanta police officer, the GBI said. The three victims who were shot were stable, it said.
It was not immediately clear whether Malone had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
The suspect in that incident had 11 past arrests, police and Dickens, the mayor, said at Tuesday evening's briefing after the bus hostage situation was over. They did not him at the time.
"When Chief explained to you that one of the individuals had 11 arrests and another one had 19 arrests, you’re talking about people that should not have been on the streets with guns," Dickens said.
"I think mental health is going to play a role in some of this, but you’re talking about too many guns in the hands of individuals that should not have guns," he said.
The bus driver who was held at gunpoint was shaken up, Schierbaum said.
"He’s been through a very harrowing experience," Schierbaum said. "His commitment to the passengers onboard, I think, will be noted later at the appropriate time, but I think he's also a hero today, as he was in a very dangerous situation."
