WARNER ROBINS, Ga. (AP) - A suspect exchanged gunfire with police outside a Georgia outlet store after stealing a firearm from a vehicle in the parking lot, investigators said.
Derik Edward Jones, of Salem, North Carolina, was shot and wounded by police in Warner Robins on Thursday afternoon and taken to a hospital in Macon for treatment, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.
Jones, 27, was suspected of breaking into a vehicle in a Walmart parking lot. He ran when police approached him, and he and three officers exchanged fire in front of a nearby Bealls Outlet, according to the GBI.
The officers were not hurt. The GBI is investigating the shooting.
Catherine Ford was leaving Bealls when she saw someone running out of the corner of her eye and heard the shots. She ran for cover behind her car.
“All I could think was fight or flight, and I flew out of there,” Ford told the Macon Telegraph. “I got away from that area, and by that time there was blue lights everywhere.”
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