1 dead, suspected gunman arrested in hijacking of Atlanta bus

One person is dead and a suspected gunman has been been arrested after allegedly hijacking an Atlanta bus and leading police on a chase Tuesday, in the second of two major crimes that rocked the city one after the other, officials said.

Police were just wrapping up a briefing after three people and a gunman were shot at a downtown mall food court when a 911 call of an emergency on a bus came in around 4:30 p.m., Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said.

A responding officer confronted the gunman, who then “forced the bus driver to drive off,” Schierbaum said.

There were 17 people on the Gwinnett County Transit bus, including the driver, as police chased the vehicle through three different jurisdictions in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties before it was disabled and trapped by a large BearCat police vehicle, officials said. The passengers on the bus then got off.

The first call about gunfire and hostages on the bus was near 45 Ivan Allen Jr. Blvd. in Atlanta, and the bus came to a final stop near 5107 Hugh Howell Road in Stone Mountain, police said — a distance of around 20 miles.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens praised 911 call center officials and police as they were “trying to navigate what was a gunman with a gun to the head of a bus driver, saying, ‘Don’t stop this bus or else worse will happen.'”

“I mean, this seems like the movies,” Dickens said, adding that but for law enforcement’s actions, it could have been worse.

The deceased was not identified by police pending notification of next of kin. The person was found shot as officers cleared the bus, and they were rushed to a hospital where they died, police said.

Dickens said the circumstances of how the person was killed were not fully known. No other injuries were reported among anyone else on the bus, police said.

Arrested was Joseph Grier, 39, most recently of Stone Mountain, a city east of Atlanta, police said.

“We don’t know yet” why he hijacked the bus, Schierbaum said, but he added that Grier is a convicted felon who has been arrested 19 times.

An investigation by the Atlanta Police Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is ongoing, police said.

It was not immediately clear if Grier had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

During the chase, one person called 911, but the call ended, police said. Another relative of a person on the bus called police and said they were getting text messages from that passenger, and then someone on the bus called 911 and the line was left open, police said.

Schierbaum said that information was continually fed to Atlanta police, as well as police in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties and the Georgia State Patrol.

“You saw the collective effort and dedication of law enforcement working today to save lives, to rescue hostages, to make sure this ended,” Schierbaum said.

Earlier in the day at the Peachtree Center Mall food court in downtown Atlanta, a gunman shot three people before he was shot and wounded by a police officer, officials said.

That shooting happened at around 2:15 p.m., or a little more than two hours before the 911 call came in about the bus.

The 34-year-old suspected gunman is believed to have had “brief altercation” with one of the victims and pulled out a gun and shot that person, Schierbaum said. He then shot the two other people.

The suspect in that shooting had 11 past arrests, police and the mayor said at Tuesday evening’s briefing after the bus hostage situation was over.

“When chief explained to you that one of the individuals had 11 arrests, and another one had 19 arrests, you’re talking about people that should not have been on the streets with guns,” Dickens said.

“I think mental health is going to play a role in some of this, but you’re talking about too many guns in the hands of individuals that should not have guns,” he said.

The bus driver who was held at gunpoint was shaken up, Schierbaum said.

“He’s been through a very harrowing experience,” Schierbaum said. “His commitment to the passengers onboard I think will be noted later at the appropriate time, but I think he’s also a hero today as he was in a very dangerous situation.”