ATLANTA — Police have arrested the man suspected of killing one woman and wounding four others in a shooting spree on Wednesday at a medical building in midtown Atlanta, then carjacking a vehicle to flee the scene, authorities said.
The accused gunman, identified as 24-year-old Deion Patterson, a former U.S. Coast Guardsman whom Atlanta police had described earlier as “armed and dangerous,” was taken into custody north of the city in suburban Cobb County, several hours after the 11:30 a.m. CDT shooting at Northside Medical, authorities said.
The Cobb County Police Department announced the arrest on Twitter. No details were immediately provided. Cobb County police earlier said Patterson was last spotted in images captured shortly after the shooting by a surveillance camera in the vicinity of the parking garage where the carjacked vehicle was later recovered, police said.
Cobb County police earlier said Patterson was last spotted in images captured shortly after the shooting by a surveillance camera in the vicinity of the parking garage where the carjacked vehicle was later recovered, police said.
Officials did not immediately identify the shooting victims, all of them women. But Schierbaum said a 39-year-old woman died at the scene. Four others — ages 71, 56, 39 and 25 — were “fighting for their lives” at Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said.
The gunman arrived at the medical center with his mother, the chief said, but she was not injured. Police said she was cooperating with investigators.
As the shooting occurred and the manhunt began, thousands of residents, workers, students and others in Midtown were forced to shelter in place for hours.
Surveillance cameras captured images of the shooter as he left the building before he apparently carjacked a white Toyota pickup truck.
Little was immediately known about the suspect’s background.
The U.S. Coast Guard said Patterson joined the guard in July 2018 and was discharged from active duty in January, after having last served as an electrician’s mate second class. No reason for his discharge was given.
Source: inforum
