In less than a week, the GBI is investigating two different shootings involving police, one in North Georgia and one in the state’s southern half.
Police in Cornelia, a small town northeast of Gainesville and west of Toccoa, shot a man after his SUV crashed into a business Sunday.
Officers got the call about the crash shortly before 6 p.m. When they arrived, police encountered Christian Drake Shurtleff, 33, of Mt. Airy, who was “immediately uncooperative and combative,” the GBI said. His 7-year-old daughter was also in the vehicle and was safely removed without injury.
During the fight with officers, one of them shot Shurtleff, according to the GBI. He was taken to a hospital. An update on his condition was not provided.
Shurtleff faces a charge of felony obstruction of a law enforcement officer, and more charges are expected, the GBI said.
Two days earlier, on Nov. 1, two men died and a sheriff’s deputy was injured during a shootout near some bars in Remerton, a small city near Valdosta. The deceased men have not been publicly identified, and details of what unfolded at the scene are unclear.
The incident started around 1:30 a.m. as four Lowndes County sheriff’s deputies were working off-duty jobs outside the bars. A fight broke out and escalated to gunfire between two people, the GBI said.
“This shooting is believed to have been what created the initial law enforcement response,” the state agency added.
Immediately following the shooting, someone fired more shots, and a deputy was struck, according to the GBI. That officer was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive as he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Both the Remerton and Cornelia shootings remain under investigation. Once the GBI is done with its investigations, the case files will be given to the respective district attorneys offices in the Southern Judicial Circuit and Mountain Judicial Circuit.
The incidents marked the 76th and 77th such shootings the GBI has been asked to investigate this year. By the same time last year, there had been 87.
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