The man police say fatally shot two police officers in Americus before killing himself was a troubled person who recently showed indications that he might be turning his life around, his sister told the Macon Telegraph.
“He didn’t have hate in his heart for no one. I know that,” Lakesha Tyson, sister of Minquell Kennedy Lembrick, told the paper.
Tyson, who works at a Wal-Mart in Americus, recalled seeing her brother with his 3-year-old son in the store earlier in the week, according to the report.
However, two days later, Lembrick shot Nicholas Smarr, an Americus police officer, and Jody Smith, a Georgia Southwestern State University officer, in an incident at an apartment complex, officials said. Smarr died at the scene, and Smith died Thursday evening at a Macon hospital.
Lembrick, 32, died Thursday morning of a self-inflicted gunshot, officials said.
One of six brothers, Lembrick went to high school in Americus but didn’t graduate, his sister said. At one time, he had thoughts of working as a barber. But authorities said he had a lengthy criminal record.
His sister can’t explain why the shooting incident with the Americus officers occurred.
“… it’s just sad,” Tyson said. “Everybody’s lost someone. People have lost fathers, they lost brothers, sons.”
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