A theft suspect was taken to a hospital Thursday after an exchange of gunfire with police in the parking lot of a Warner Robins shopping center, officials said.
Derik Edward Jones, 27, was not the reason Warner Robins police were initially called to a Walmart on Watson Boulevard. Officers responded to a shoplifting call about 2 p.m., but while they spoke with the Walmart security team, another shopper alerted them to a man breaking into cars in the parking lot, according to the GBI.
When the officers approached the man, later identified as Jones, he ran across the parking lot, said Todd Crosby, the GBI agent in charge of the investigation.
“When Jones and officers got in front of Bealls Outlet, several shots were fired by Jones and three officers,” Crosby said in a news release. “During the exchange of gunfire, Jones was struck.”
Jones was taken to Navicent Health Hospital in Macon, where he is being treated for his injuries. The GBI said Friday he is stable and will be transferred to the Houston County Jail after he is discharged.
No officers were injured by the gunfire, according to Crosby.
“The firearm used by Jones has been identified as a firearm stolen out of a vehicle in the Walmart parking lot,” he said.
Jones is a resident of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but has been living in parts of Georgia for most of the past year, the agency said. He was not believed to be connected to the shoplifting incident inside Walmart.
He is charged with three counts of aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, theft by receiving, possession of a firearm while on first offender probation, criminal trespassing and entering an automobile.
The GBI is investigating the incident as an officer-involved shooting, its fourth such investigation this month. There were 96 officer-involved shootings in 2020.
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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