'Surreal' sight for witnesses
Shirley Jones and Darren Williams were coming home to their Sycamore Drive apartment about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday after looking for jobs and planning their wedding.
As they approached Cascades on the River, an apartment complex near theirs, they saw a middle-aged white man with curly blond hair run across the street, they said. A thin, barefoot, bald black man in his 30s wearing baggy clothes followed. See photos from the scene of the shooting. From about 100 feet away, Williams and Jones said they saw the black man - identified by police as Jamie Hood, 33 - shoot into a police car that had just pulled into the parking lot. He then shot into another car police car parked across the street, doubled back, shot into the first police car again and ran off, the couple said. "We saw everything plain," Jones said. "It was surreal." Williams, 41, said he was tempted to step on the gas. "If I had another couple feet on him, the first thing on my mind was, 'Run him over,' " he said. His thoughts turned to Jones' daughters, Markissa, 18, and Jamyria, 11, who were at home - in the direction the gunman ran. So, instead, Williams backed up, turned around and drove away. He tried to get to his apartment complex, Regency Park, through a nearby office park off West Broad Street, but found that police had already blocked the way. They later talked to the sisters over the phone, and they were both safe. Jones, 38, said she thought the neighborhood was a quiet one, and she was shocked by the violence. Now, she said she is scared and considering moving. "I'm worried about safety," she said. "I'm worried about security. It's so sad to see this happen." She said she also was thinking of the officers, Senior Police Officer Elmer "Buddy" Christian, who was killed, and SPO Tony Howard, who was wounded. Hood stole a car near Epps Bridge Road and led police on a chase to the area around Athens-Ben Epps Airport, where he lost his pursuers, police said. Unsure of where Hood might turn up, Clarke County school officials put schools on lockdown Tuesday, alerted parents to keep their children inside and canceled evening events. Students who could not get home through police roadblocks were taken back to schools to wait. As police went door-to-door around Sycamore Drive on Tuesday afternoon, checked cars and searched the woods in the neighborhood, some residents who were evacuated from their apartments waited outside the yellow crime-scene tape. Others who were coming home from work found that they weren't allowed through. But no one else said they saw what happened. "Maybe they saw something," Bobby Billups said. "Maybe they didn't. People don't want to get involved in something like this." Billups, who lives in the Timber Chase complex, said he heard a knock on the door and opened it to find a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent pointing an assault rifle at his face. Outside, he said he saw Christian's bloody body still sitting in his car and Howard being loaded into an ambulance. The officers were investigating a carjacking and kidnapping on Winterville Road and Hood, who lives in the area, was a suspect, police said. Howard was taken to Athens Regional Medical Center, although hospital officials said they could not release any information about his condition or even confirm he had been admitted, citing privacy laws. But Athens-Clarke Mayor Nancy Denson visited Howard there, she said at ARMC on Tuesday evening. "He's going to be fine," Denson said. "I can't go into any more detail, but I did see him." Many officers probably were too busy searching for Hood to visit Howard, but several joined a crowd of friends and family at the hospital, former Mayor Doc Eldridge said. "With the officers (at the hospital), there is a lot of emotion," Eldridge said. "You can imagine, the police officers are very somber." Howard was shot in the face and shoulder, but was speaking clearly after surgery Tuesday evening, he said. "He looks great," Eldridge said. "It's a miracle." Christian, the slain officer, attended Madison County High School and the University of Georgia, according to his Facebook page. He had worked at the Athens-Clarke Police Department since December 2002. Christian is survived by his wife, a son, a daughter, his parents and a brother, police said.
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I close my eyes and seize it I clench my fists and beat it I light my torch and burn it I am the beast I worship....
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