GBI identifies man killed in exchange of gunfire with Conyers police

The GBI has identified a man killed Wednesday morning after he allegedly threatened a Conyers gas station clerk with a gun before exchanging shots with the police officers who tried to detain him.

Jesse Roach, 40, of Carrollton, was fatally wounded when he was shot by Conyers police around 7 a.m. Wednesday, the GBI said.

According to the state agency, officers responded to a Chevron at 1135 Sigman Road after a clerk called 911 to report that Roach had threatened him with a gun. When officers arrived, the man was “attempting to exit the location and going against officers’ commands,” Conyers police spokesman Lt. Quantavis Garcia told reporters at the scene.

Investigators collect evidence after a man was shot and killed by Conyers police at a gas station Wednesday.

The suspect then got into a black truck and “attempted to leave the scene at one point in the vehicle,” Garcia said. The truck crashed into another parked car and the front of the gas station’s convenience store, causing some structural damage to the front glass.

At some point, one of the officers tried to use a Taser on Roach, the GBI said. Roach was able to remove the Taser probes, then pulled a gun from his pocket and fired at the officers, according to the state agency. The officers fired back, hitting Roach.

Roach was taken to Piedmont Rockdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the GBI said.

The GBI was asked to take over the investigation by Conyers police. Roach’s body will be taken to the GBI Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy, and all results of the investigation will be turned over to the Rockdale County District Attorney’s Office for review.

Conyers police will conduct an internal affairs investigation into the use of force, which is department protocol following an officer’s discharge of a firearm. The Georgia State Patrol will handle the investigation into the crash.

This is the 75th shooting involving law enforcement that the GBI has been asked to investigate in 2024. The pace of police shootings in Georgia has slowed this year after the state agency investigated 84 such incidents through the end of October 2023.

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