A murder suspect accused of shooting a fugitive task force officer on Tuesday is dead after a standoff in a Stockbridge neighborhood, officials said.
In a news conference outside Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said the officer who was shot is expected to make a full recovery. The APD investigator is a member of a fugitive task force also staffed by the Georgia State Patrol and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The task force tried to take 33-year-old Derrick Rankin into custody around noon Tuesday, Schierbaum said. Rankin was suspected of killing Courtney Reese in southeast Atlanta on Aug. 20, according to the police chief.
When the task force tried to arrest Rankin at a home on Linden Drive in the Swan Lake Estates neighborhood, he opened fire on them, striking the APD officer, Schierbaum said. Officers returned fire as they evacuated their injured colleague, the GBI said in a statement. The state agency has been asked to investigate the use of force.
The injured officer was hit in the arm and is expected to make a full recovery, according to Schierbaum. The chief thanked the Henry sheriff’s office for using their helicopter to transport the injured officer, an 18-year veteran of the force, to Grady.
After shots were fired, Rankin then barricaded himself inside the house, a USMS spokesman told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Georgia State Patrol’s SWAT team was eventually called to help remove Rankin from the house, the GBI said. Troopers deployed tear gas into the house and then went inside to locate him.
Rankin was found in the attic with at least one gunshot wound and in possession of a rifle, according to the GBI. He was removed from the attic so emergency medical personnel could treat him, but he was declared dead at the scene.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens released a statement Tuesday afternoon that mentioned he spoke to the injured APD investigator and was grateful the officer’s injuries were not life-threatening. His statement also shed further light on Rankin’s alleged killing of Reese a week earlier.
“While authorities are still gathering details, we do know that the suspect was wanted for murder in our city — a horrible act of domestic violence that took the life of a mother of four — and this man barricaded himself in the house, shot at law enforcement and had no business having a gun in the first place,” Dickens said. “Domestic violence is a national crisis, and we must all band together and say, ‘no more.’”
— This is a developing story. We are working to learn more.
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