A weekend shooting that left a man dead outside a DeKalb County gas station was justified, and the gunman will not face charges, police said.
According to an incident report obtained Monday by AJC.com, authorities got to the Texaco on Gresham Road just before 7 p.m. Saturday and found 22-year-old Brian Jackson-Swinney face down with a gunshot wound to the head. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
According to the report, the shooter approached one of the responding officers and said, “I’m the one who shot him.” Without prompting, he put his hands in the air and told the officer he had a gun in his right pocket, which the official retrieved.
The gunman said he was parked at a gas pump when a black Toyota Camry pulled up next to him. Three men, including the victim, got out of the Camry.
The shooter called Jackson-Swinney over to his purple Dodge Charger, where he was selling cologne. The Camry’s other occupants were headed toward the gas station’s convenience store when Jackson-Swinney called them back. He returned to the Camry and had a brief conversation with the duo before walking back to the Charger.
That’s when the gunman noticed a gun tucked in Jackson-Swinney’s pants, according to the incident report.
The shooter told police that Jackson-Swinney “appeared to be very nervous while talking to” him. “He felt as if something was wrong, so he put his gun by his side.”
At some point, Jackson-Swinney reached inside the Charger and grabbed the shooter’s gun, police said in the report. After a struggle, Jackson-Swinney was shot once in the head.
One of the passengers in the Camry fired shots at the gunman, prompting him to return fire. It is not clear if anyone in the Camry was hit because the vehicle sped off onto the I-20 East access road toward Flat Shoals Road.
The gunman got out of his vehicle, went inside the Texaco and called 911.
He was released after investigators determined he opened fire in self-defense, according to DeKalb police spokesman Sgt. J.D. Spencer.
The shooter’s name is not being released because the passengers in the Camry have not been found, “and we do not want to jeopardize his safety,” Spencer said.
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