Authorities: 911 caller ambushed, shot officer in Georgia

A police officer was shot and wounded while responding to a bogus emergency call at an apartment complex in this south Georgia city Friday, state authorities reported. Both are expected to survive.

Hancock underwent surgery at a local hospital and was stable Friday as he rested with his family by his side, Childress said.

Commanders overnight and Friday morning reported some Atlanta officers “feel that they are under attack”, Turner said.

Hancock was listed in stable condition Friday. Both Childress and Dutton identified the suspect as an Asian male.

Valdosta Police Officer Randall Hancock was wounded in the shootout in the Three Oaks Apartment complex parking lot.

Beck is accused of shooting Valdosta police officer Randall Hancock Friday morning in a hail of bullets only hours after a sniper in Dallas killed five police officers and wounded seven others in retaliation for fatal police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

The City of Valdosta has said that a Valdosta Police Department officer was dispatched on Friday, July 8, at 7:57a.m, for a damage to property call, to Three Oaks Apartments.

“We’re putting pieces together to understand what happened and why, developing witnesses”, said Scott Dutton, spokesman for the GBI.

He said while news reports describe the shooting as an ambush, local police and the GBI are not doing so.

Hancock returned the gunfire, wounding the suspected gunman, identified by the GBI as Stephen Paul Beck, 22. ‘I am also equally relieved that the offender is going to make it’. “I call him “Joe Cool” if you want to call him that”, said Chief Childress. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, Texas, acted alone in the shooting rampage. Agents say “the work to develop a thorough understanding of his motivation for this incident remains central to the ongoing investigative work”.

The suspect was on probation for a weapons violation in St. Louis, Belmar said, had been on probation for a stolen vehicle in Oklahoma and was picked up on a gun charge in California, drawing a prison term for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

“He was a good kid.really remorseful I think about some of the troubles he had gotten into in the past”, Cunningham said.

The motive behind the shooting is unknown at this time.

Tensions between law enforcement and the African-American community flared this week following two instances where white officers fatally shot black men. He’s now in stable condition in the ICU.