One dead as gunman hijacks bus and leads police on car chase through Atlanta suburbs

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One person is dead after a gunman hijacked a bus in Atlanta before leading police on a car chase for miles from the city into neighboring suburbs.

Police said one person was fatally shot after a gunman, identified as 39-year-old felon Joseph Grier, hijacked a commuter bus with 17 people inside shortly after 4:30pm on Tuesday near downtown Atlanta, prompting passengers to frantically text loved ones and call 911 for help.

“Our initial call was of a gunman on the bus, that was holding hostages, and possibly there had been a discharged weapon,” Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said in a Tuesday evening news conference.

An officer arrived about a minute after the initial 911 call and “confronted the perpetrator” who then held the bus driver at gunpoint and forced him to speed away, sparking the chase, Schierbaum said.

The miles-long car chase was captured in television news footage which showed the dramatic pursuit of the Gwinnett County Transit bus as it barrelled through rush hour traffic, striking several vehicles.

During the chase, a passenger on board the bus surreptitiously stayed on the line with 911, allowing authorities to hear the commotion, Schierbaum said. Mayor Andre Dickens said the chaos sounded like a movie scene as the suspect had “a gun to the head of a bus driver saying, ‘Don’t stop this bus or else worse will happen.’” The events echo the plot of the 1994 thriller Speed.

Atlanta police said the bus was eventually stopped miles away in neighboring DeKalb County. Grier was then taken into custody.

Grier, a convicted felon with 19 prior arrests, was armed with a handgun, Schierbaum said.

A passenger aboard the bus was then found with a gunshot wound and taken to a hospital, where they later died, officials said. They have not yet been formally identified.

Following the incident, photos showed an armored police SWAT vehicle squarely blocking the front of the bus, which was also flanked by a firetruck.

Afterward, a lighted digital sign above the bus windshield still read: “EMERGENCY” and “CALL POLICE 911.”

The first 911 call came just two hours after a shooting at a food court in a downtown Atlanta in which a man shot three people before he was shot by an off-duty police officer.

Police said the 34-year-old suspect, who was quickly arrested, is a convicted felon who has been arrested 11 times.

The suspect and the three victims were all taken to hospitals but were expected to survive.

Schierbaum said investigators do not believe there is a link between the food court shooting and the bus hijacking.

“Today has been a very active day, but let me be clear, we’re talking about gun violence that is as a result of too many people having guns in their hands,” Mayor Dickens said in an evening news conference that followed the bus hijacking. “You’re talking about people that should not have been on the streets with guns.”

Dickens said the spate of gun violence shows “something more needs to be done” but noted violent crime in the city has been decreasing.

“So this day is not indicative of all the days in the city of Atlanta, but this is a day we’ll never forget,” the mayor said.

A joint investigation into the hijacking will be conducted by the Atlanta Police Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.