A man was shot early Friday morning in an exchange of gunfire with a suspected car burglar in the parking lot of a Midtown Atlanta strip mall, police said.

Officers responded to the Ansley Square strip mall at 1510 Piedmont Avenue just before 1:30 a.m., Atlanta police said in a news release. At the scene, they found a man suffering from a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital and is stable.

According to the initial investigation, the man confronted someone who appeared to be breaking into a car in the shopping center’s parking lot, located just north of Piedmont Park along the northern end of the Atlanta Beltline Eastside Trail. Both the victim and suspect were armed and the confrontation escalated to gunfire, police said.

The suspect fled before officers arrived and was not identified Friday. No further information was released.

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