A man is dead and a North Fulton SWAT officer is injured after the two exchanged gunfire as police attempted to execute search and arrest warrants at a Roswell home Friday afternoon, officials said.
The shooting happened behind a house in the 500 block of Ansley Drive, police said. Roswell police Chief James Conroy said the SWAT unit was deployed because the suspect was wanted on multiple firearms-related charges and has “an extensive violent criminal history.”
According to Conroy’s account of the incident, officers surrounded the house before approaching the front entrance. After they knocked on the door, a man with a handgun ran out of the back of the house. He immediately encountered a SWAT officer and fired two shots into the officer’s chest, Conroy said.
The officer returned fire, hitting and killing the man, the chief said. Officials have not publicly identified either the injured officer or the suspect.
Because the SWAT officer was wearing a ballistic vest, he survived the shooting, Conroy said. However, the officer was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries caused by shrapnel. He is expected to make a full recovery, police said.
The house was occupied by at least five adults, Conroy said, and it is not clear if the man killed was the person wanted for arrest. The other four adults are cooperating with authorities, the chief said.
The suspect at the center of Friday’s operation was wanted on multiple charges related to an incident on Dec. 31, Conroy said. The man was accused of firing multiple gunshots at a party after he was asked to leave, according to the chief. In a statement, police said the man was wanted on counts of reckless conduct, discharge of firearms on the property of another and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Neighbor Austin Sheffield told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the New Year’s Eve incident took place at his home, two doors down from the house where the man was killed. Sheffield said he has lived in his house for about eight months and had not noticed anything unusual about the suspect’s home.
“The only interaction we’ve had with him is he came over to our house on New Year’s,” Sheffield said.
Sheffield said the man “thought it was legal to shoot firearms in the neighborhood on New Year’s.”
“We asked him to leave and then he got very agitated,” Sheffield said. “He said he was going to come back with three of his friends and shoot up our trucks.”
Sheffield said someone from his household called 911 to report the incident but had not heard anything else until officers arrived to serve the arrest warrant Friday.
The entrance to Ansley Drive was blocked off Friday afternoon as a number of police vehicles were parked in front of the house and all around the road. Only local residents were being allowed in and out. Officers were conducting interviews among residents of the neighborhood, which is just across Old Alabama Road from Big Creek Park.
Speaking just before 2:30 p.m., Conroy said his officers were aware that schools would be letting out soon and planned to allow residents and schoolchildren back into the neighborhood.
The North Fulton SWAT unit is made up of officers from several different agencies, Conroy said, including police from Roswell, Alpharetta, Milton and Johns Creek. He did not share which agency employed the injured officer, saying that he wanted to wait until he spoke to the family.
Conroy said the GBI has taken over the investigation at his request.
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