A man fatally shot one Georgia police officer and wounded a second before fleeing an apartment complex near a college campus that went on lockdown as a precaution, authorities said. They said the suspect is believed to be armed and dangerous.The gunman escaped and was considered extremely dangerous. Rewards totaling $30,000 were offered and a massive manhunt involving scores of state and local officers was under way Wednesday evening for Minquell Kennedy Lembrick, 32. The shooting took place when the two officers were responding to a domestic dispute in Americus, about 130 miles south of Atlanta, Americus police Chief Mark Scott said.
“It’s a tremendous loss to our family,” Scott said of Smarr’s death. “It’s a tragedy beyond words. One of our family members has been taken from us.”
Scott urged anyone who sees Lembrick to call police but warned, “Do not attempt to approach him. He is armed and dangerous.”
“This is a very dangerous individual. We need to have him off the streets,” Keenan said. “We need him arrested so he can face the courts.”
Lembrick already had outstanding warrants for kidnapping and other charges related to a previous domestic incident, but the officers didn’t know whom they were dealing with when they responded to the 911 call, Scott told reporters.
Shortly after the shootings Wednesday, a message posted on Lembrick’s Facebook page read: “other life gone not going to jail.”
Also posted to Lembrick’s account was a four-second Facebook Live video showing a young man partly concealed by shadows saying, “I’m gonna miss y’all folk, man.” The final message on Lembrick’s page read: “Love yall.”
All three posts had Facebook timestamps between 10:13 a.m. and 10:41 a.m. The video was removed a few hours after it was posted.
The university issued an alert on its website saying the shooting occurred off campus but that the campus was on lockdown. University interim President Charles Patterson told reporters the lockdown remained in effect late Wednesday afternoon.
At least five other Georgia law enforcement officers have been killed by gunmen in the line of duty this year.