1 dead, suspected gunman arrested in Atlanta bus hijacking

One person died and a suspected shooter was arrested after he allegedly hijacked an Atlanta bus and led police on a chase Tuesday, in the second of two major crimes that rocked the city one after the other, officials said. officials said.

Police were just finishing a briefing after three people and a gunman were shot in a food court at a downtown shopping center when a The emergency 911 call on a bus came in around 4:30 p.m., Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said.

A responding officer confronted the shooter, who then “forced the bus driver to leave,” Schierbaum said.

There were 17 people aboard the Gwinnett County Transit bus, including the driver, as police pursued the vehicle through three different jurisdictions in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties before it was disabled and trapped by a large vehicle BearCat police station, officials said. The bus passengers then got off.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens praised 911 call center officials and police as they “tried to figure out what was an armed man with a gun to a bus driver’s head, in saying: ‘Don’t stop this bus, otherwise worse will happen.'”

“I mean, it sounds like a movie,” Dickens said, adding that without the actions of law enforcement, it could have been worse.

The deceased, who is believed to have been shot, has not been identified by police pending notification of next of kin. Dickens said the circumstances in which the person was killed were not fully known.

Joseph Greer, 39, was arrested recently and lived in Stone Mountain, a city east of Atlanta, police said.

“We don’t know yet” why he hijacked the bus, Schierbaum said, but he added that Greer is a convicted felon who has 19 arrests.

An investigation by the Atlanta Police Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is ongoing, police said.

It was not immediately clear whether Greer had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

During the chase, a person called 911, but the call ended, police said. Another relative of a person on the bus called police and said they were receiving text messages from that passenger, then someone on the bus called 911 and the line remained open, police said .

Schierbaum said information was continually being relayed to Atlanta police, as well as police in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties and the Georgia State Patrol.

“You saw the collective effort and dedication of law enforcement working today to save lives, to free hostages and to make this end,” Schierbaum said.

Earlier in the day, in the food court at Peachtree Center Mall in downtown Atlanta, a gunman shot and killed three people before being shot and wounded by a police officer, officials said.

This shooting happened around 2:15 p.m., a little more than two hours before the 911 call about the bus.

The suspected shooter, 34, allegedly had a “brief altercation” with one of the victims and pulled out a gun and shot that person, Schierbaum said. He then shot the other two people.

The suspect in that shooting had already been arrested 11 times, police and the mayor said at Tuesday night’s briefing after the bus hostage crisis ended.

“When the chief explained to you that one of the individuals had 11 arrests and another had 19 arrests, you are talking about people who should not have been on the street with guns,” Dickens said.

“I think mental health is going to play a role in all of this, but you’re talking about too many guns in the hands of individuals who shouldn’t have them,” he said.

The bus driver who was held at gunpoint is shaken, Schierbaum said.

“He had a very painful experience,” Schierbaum said. “His commitment to the passengers on board will, I think, be highlighted later at the appropriate time, but I think he is also a hero today because he was in a very dangerous situation.”