Two Atlanta police officers shot a man dead as he stabbed a store clerk inside a gas station on Atlanta’s southwest side early Saturday, according to officials.
The GBI is investigating the deadly shooting. The store clerk, who sustained multiple stab wounds, was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in critical condition, Atlanta police Deputy Chief Charles Hampton Jr. told reporters from the scene Saturday morning.
Two officers were also injured in the incident that killed 20-year-old Nickolas Elisha Pierson, according to the GBI.
Police initially received reports of a fight around 4:45 a.m. at the BP convenience store at 2261 Cascade Road, Hampton said. As officers were en route, the situation intensified with reports that someone was armed with a knife.
Police arrived and saw a man holding a knife inside the store, but the front doors were barred and locked, the deputy chief said. Officers ordered him to drop the weapon, but he ignored their demands, according to Hampton.
“It took officers a considerable amount of time to make entry into the store because the clerk had locked the suspect inside,” he said.
In a statement, GBI officials said the officers had to break the front windows with batons to force their way in. They received minor injuries from the shattered glass, Channel 2 Action News reported.
Pierson was shot when the officers made their way inside and again saw the man stabbing the victim, according to the GBI. He was pronounced dead at the scene and found near multiple “edged weapons,” an agency spokesperson said.
“The suspect appeared to have the victim pinned to the ground,” Hampton said. “Again, challenges were made to drop the weapon. The suspect did not; officers discharged their weapons.”
Credit: Atlanta Police Department
Credit: Atlanta Police Department
There were no customers inside the store during the deadly encounter, police said.
Hampton said it appears two officers fired at Pierson, and both were transferred from the scene to APD headquarters, the deputy chief told reporters. He gave no word on how many times the officers fired, citing the ongoing investigation.
The incident marked the 40th officer-involved shooting the GBI has been asked to investigate this year. It was the fourth such incident in the state this week, and the second deadly shooting in that span.
Savannah police shot and killed David Paul Dixon, a 36-year-old Louisiana man, after he attacked an officer with a “makeshift” 13-inch sharpened spike early last Sunday, the GBI said.
On Thursday, the state agency was called to officer-involved shootings in Banks and Thomas counties.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also tracks officer-involved shootings that don’t involve the GBI, and those numbers sometimes differ from the GBI’s tally.
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