Authorities had said Friday that there was no known connection to the shooting deaths Thursday night of five police officers in Dallas, Texas.
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According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, VPD officer Randall Hancock was dispatched to Three Oaks Apartments in Valdosta at 7:54 a.m. after a vehicle break-in and property damage were reported.
A white Valdosta, Georgia police officer was recovering from surgery Friday evening after he was shot by an assailant who placed a 911 call and then waited to ambush him.
During an interview with police Saturday, Beck confessed to calling 911 and shooting Officer Hancock because “he wanted the police to shoot him as he wanted to die”, the GBI reported.
“The motive behind the shooting is unknown at this time”, according to the GBI.
Darius Sheffield is a neighbor of Beck’s who says they would talk about sports and movies. The suspect reportedly told agents he suffered from depression and admitted making the 911 call Hancock responded to because he wanted to be killed by police, the GBI said.
One gunshot hit the cop in the abdomen and he is in a stable condition in hospital. He said while news reports describe the shooting as an ambush, local police and the GBI are not doing so. The agency said he immediately screamed into his police radio for assistance. Childress would not discuss a possible motive.
Officer Hancock was taken to an area hospital where he was treated and is in stable condition. Meanwhile, in Tennessee, a man accused of shooting indiscriminately at passing cars and police on a state highway told investigators he was angry about police violence against African-Americans, authorities said Friday. “One thing I do remember him saying a couple of times is he didn’t want to go back home because he didn’t want to be back around the same crowds”. Other shots hit the officer’s vest. He says the officer was shot “multiple times” but is going to be fine.
The GBI said Hancock arrived and was sacked upon when he got out of his patrol auto. In this case, the suspect is Asian, and the officer is white.
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The police chief said Hancock was wearing a body camera, and its video footage had been turned over to the GBI. The officer “had no chance at all” to pull his handgun and “was completely helpless”, Scott said, noting the encounter was recorded by the police car’s dashcam. The Dallas officers were shot during a protest over the recent killings of black men by police in Minnesota and Louisiana.
