A Sunday morning call about a sleeping driver escalated into gunfire before 6 a.m. in Marietta.
It started as something routine. Just before 5:45 a.m., uniformed patrol officers arrived at the intersection of Terrell Mill Road and Brookview Road to check on a driver reported asleep at the wheel of a black Mercedes SUV. A fire truck was already on scene. Officers pulled a patrol vehicle in front of the Mercedes, boxing it in from both ends.
Then the driver woke up.
According to Marietta police, the driver refused to comply with officers’ commands. What followed was a rapid chain of collisions: the driver struck the marked police vehicle, then the fire truck. Then he turned the Mercedes toward an officer.
That officer fired his gun.
Whether the driver was hit by gunfire is not yet known. What is known is that the driver fled southbound on Terrell Mill Road. After a brief pursuit, officers lost visual contact with the vehicle.
As of Sunday afternoon, the driver’s identity remains unknown. The Marietta Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit has taken over the investigation. The case is being tracked under case number 26023223.
No officer or firefighter injuries were reported.
B.T. Clark
B.T. Clark is an award-winning journalist and the Publisher of The Georgia Sun. He has 25 years of experience in journalism and served as Managing Editor of Neighbor Newspapers in metro Atlanta for 15 years and Digital Director at Times-Journal Inc. for 8 years. His work has appeared in several newspapers throughout the state including Neighbor Newspapers, The Cherokee Tribune and The Marietta Daily Journal. He is a Georgia native and a fifth-generation Georgian.
