(Editor’s note: The charges against Arterio Crumbley were dropped by Clayton County police after another suspect was identified.)
A magistrate judge denied bond Thursday morning for the man suspected of shooting a Clayton County police officer and a robbery victim.
Arterio Crumbley, 25, surrendered at the Clayton jail Wednesday just before midnight, ending an hourslong manhunt. He is accused of shooting the officer and another man during a robbery hours earlier in a shopping center along Riverdale Road.
Crumbley will remain in jail at least until his preliminary hearing April 20.
The officer, Ryan Richey, was released from Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center on Wednesday night after successfully undergoing surgery, a Clayton police spokesperson confirmed. The robbery victim’s injury was not believed to be life-threatening.
A multitude of police officers and tactical units from across metro Atlanta converged on the shopping center outside the Harbour Food Mart around 2 p.m. after the two were shot. The shopping strip also contains a Wells Fargo ATM, several small stores, a pan-African restaurant and a Chinese restaurant.
“A robbery was being committed when the officer arrived,” Clayton police Chief Kevin Roberts told reporters from the scene. “He engaged the suspect in the parking lot. That suspect discharged his firearm twice, striking the officer and the victim.”
Roberts said the officer was met with gunfire “upon his immediate arrival.” He was struck once in his waistline, near his abdomen, with what was believed to be a ricocheting bullet, the chief said. The robbery victim was struck in his hand.
The officer did not return fire, according to Roberts.
For several hours Wednesday, police believed they had the suspected shooter, later identified as Crumbley, contained in a large, densely populated neighborhood behind the shopping center. They established a perimeter and had the area “locked down pretty well,” Roberts said.
Credit: Clayton County Police Department
Credit: Clayton County Police Department
As officers searched on foot and by air, residents of the neighborhood were asked to stay inside and lock their doors. Police scaled back their presence in the area and allowed residents to return to normal activities shortly after 9 p.m.
Three Clayton schools were put on lockdown Wednesday as a precaution, a district spokesman confirmed. Buses were allowed to leave Northcutt Elementary, North Clayton Middle and North Clayton High under heightened security, while students who walked to school waited to be picked up by parents or escorted home by police.
At one school, 40 students were held into the late afternoon, according to the school district.
The shooting was the second to involve a Clayton officer in recent months. On Nov. 30, Officer Henry Laxon was killed in the line of duty while he and other members of the department’s tactical unit responded to a domestic call, according to police.
The 27-year-old field training officer was shot while trying to help a gunshot victim at a Rex home. Investigators believe 35-year-old Arthur Allen Gilliam killed two women, shot a 12-year-old boy in the face and then fired at officers, killing Laxson. Another officer returned fire, killing Gilliam.
Laxson was the sixth Clayton officer killed in the line of duty, according to the Officers Down Memorial Page, which tracks law enforcement deaths. In March 2015, Officer Darryl Wallace, 26, died when he tried to avoid striking another motorist and instead over-corrected and crashed on Tara Boulevard, police said.
— Staff writers Alexis Stevens and Matt Bruce contributed to this article.
About the Author
