A former US Coast Guardsman was charged with murder after a fatal shooting in an Atlanta medical building on Wednesday.
Deion Patterson was arrested without incident when an undercover police officer noticed him around 8.00pm in a Georgia suburb hours after the deadly shooting.
Around 12.00pm, Patterson, 24, entered the Northside Medical building in Midtown Atlanta for an appointment with his mother, police said. Moments later, he opened fire in the office’s waiting room.
Patterson fled from the scene only two minutes later on foot. He ran to a nearby Shell gas station, where stole a pickup truck that had been left running and unattended.
This prompted an 8-hour manhunt involving through the Atlanta metropolitan area. A shelter-in-place order was issued in Midtown, a crowded commercial neighborhood.
The search was re-focused to Cobb County, just northwest of the city, when his vehicle was spotted there around 2.30pm.
At one point, authorities suspected he had fled to an open construction site near Battery Atlanta, a shopping center near Truist Park, the home of the Atlanta Braves, the city’s Major League Baseball team.
‘This was a concern to us because many people would be at that location,’ Cobb County Police Chief Stuart VanHoozer said.
The victims were identified as five women ages 25, 39, 56, 71. It is currently unclear if they were patients or employees at the medical center.
The deceased victim was identified by the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office as Amy St Pierre, 39. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed she was an employee of the agency.
The injured victims were described as ‘fighting for their lives’ by Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum. Three of the four are in critical condition and underwent surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital.
Patterson appeared in court on Thursday morning. He was charged with one count of murder and four counts of aggravated assault.
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