A 17-year-old former student was one of two people inside a car that drove toward an officer on a DeKalb County high school campus last week, prompting that officer to fire his gun, officials said.
The DeKalb County school police department has accused Ricky Brookins II of several charges, including aggravated assault on an officer, carrying a weapon within school safety zones, trespassing, and hit-and-run following Thursday’s shooting outside Lithonia High School.
The other man involved in the incident has not been identified by the GBI. While the case is still being investigated, GBI spokeswoman Nelly Miles told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution there are no pending charges on the second man involved.
Police and GBI investigators swarmed the parking lot following the shooting around 3 p.m. A school employee noticed two men on campus who were not students and repeatedly asked them to leave, the GBI said in a news release. A school resource officer was alerted and approached the men, who were sitting in a vehicle outside the school.
As the officer approached, Brookins put the car in reverse and began backing out, striking several cars in the process, Miles said.
“(Brookins) then drove the vehicle toward the officer,” Miles said, prompting the officer to shoot into the car.
The bullet grazed Brookins and he stopped the vehicle in the parking lot. He was taken into custody by the school resource officer and treated at the scene. A DeKalb police officer helped take the passenger into custody, Miles said, and a gun was found inside the car.
No current students were injured in the on-campus shooting, according to school officials. It’s unclear how many students witnessed the incident.
A school district spokeswoman confirmed Brookins was a former Lithonia High student, and said he’d been warned repeatedly to leave the property prior to the shooting.
“The (school resource officer) was alerted by a teacher that the suspect was a former student and did not belong on campus over the school radio,” the district said in an emailed statement. “Additionally, the principal that was already familiar with the suspect and had already told him to leave campus earlier, confirmed he was not a student and did not belong on campus.”
It’s unclear how long it had been since Brookins was enrolled at the school or why the teen wasn’t allowed on campus. He was being held without bond Tuesday, jail records show.
The incident was the 61st officer-involved shooting the GBI has been asked to investigate this year, matching the pace of law enforcement shootings from 2020 in Georgia.
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.
— Staff writer Shaddi Abusaid contributed to this article.
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