On Saturday at around 9:30 p.m., officer Tim Smith responded to a Dodge County 911 call reporting a suspicious person at an intersection in Eastman, a town of 5,000 about an hour’s drive southeast of Macon.
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The U.S. Marshal alerted the Sheriff’s Office to the possibility of the suspect fleeing toward Gainesville.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that officer Smith “was not wearing a protective vest”. They do not have a description of the shooter but they say they’ve worked several leads overnight. Taken into custody with him, were his sister Franshawn Shanae Deeds, who was driving the getaway vehicle, and Jamil Mitchell, who was a passenger.
After the fatal shooting of Eastman, Georgia police officer Tim Smith on August 13, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of suspect Royheem Delshawn Deeds. Smith got out of his patrol vehicle to investigate and was shot by the individual.
Smith had been with the Eastman Police Department since 2011. Smith wasn’t wearing a body camera, Dutton said, but he had a dash camera mounted on his patrol vehicle. They advised citizens to not approach Deeds, but to call authorities.
It’s unclear how authorities identified Deeds as a suspect.
Dutton said there was no evidence the officer had been lured into an ambush by a bogus call for assistance. His father, Glenwood police officer Lewis Smith, said in a phone interview Monday his family’s “hearts are just broken”.
“We were engaged. We were trying to get on our feet before getting married”, his fiancee Chelsea Clark told CNN, explaining that Smith always hugged her and his children and told them he loved them every day before work.
Smith followed his own father, an officer of 29 years, into law enforcement.
Rigdon said the younger Smith may have been quiet, but he was “stern in his abilities to keep the weak from being oppressed”.
USA Today reported that Bureau Special Agent in Charge Scott Whitley said the 31-year-old officer from the Eastman Police Department had a conversation with the 24-year-old alleged gunman.
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Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.
