Three women are fighting for their lives after being shot in an Atlanta medical center Wednesday afternoon. Five women, including one who died, were shot by a gunman.
The 24-year-old suspected shooter led law enforcement officials on a nearly eight-hour manhunt that spanned nearly a dozen miles. The suspect's mother says she took him to an appointment at a medical facility in Midtown, when things took a violent turn.
Scripps News' "Morning Rush" hosts spoke with Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley and Rodney Bryant, former police chief in Atlanta who served for more than 30 years, to understand how authorities finally captured the suspect.
"When police respond to an incident such as this, a lot goes into it. A lot of training has to be put in place to even respond to something of this magnitude," Bryant said. "And I think the men and women of the Atlanta Police Department and their adjoining agencies — Fulton County Sheriff's Office and all the other supporting law enforcement agencies — did a pretty good job of responding to something of this magnitude. It is very difficult."
Bryant talked about how the large population of Atlanta played a role in the manhunt taking so long.
"When you have that level of individuals in a city, it sometimes can take time to respond and capture an individual," he said. "However, the technologies, the resources, the dedication — I think that for us to be able to apprehend this individual in that amount of time, collectively, was a pretty good job."
Langley said he's thankful his company, which tracks cars and license plates, has such a great partnership with the Atlanta Police Department, Fulton County, Cobb County and the Shawnee Metro Agencies.
"It was truly a combination of great people, great technology and as Chief VanHoozer mentioned in Cobb County, a great community effort," Langley said. "Once the individual was clearly in a vehicle, the Atlanta Police Department was able to use our system in conjunction with Cobb County to track that vehicle out of the metro area and into Cobb County near Truist Park, where the Braves play. For us, it was a horrible day and we're just proud to be a small part of a silver lining in bringing this individual under apprehension."
Langley spoke about the technology also creating an opportunity to prevent these crimes from happening in the first place.
"Nationwide, with a nonviolent crime, it's a 1-in-10 chance you get arrested. And while violent crime is a better ratio, that's the No. 1 issue," he said. "We need to show that if you commit a crime, you'll be held accountable and that's where we play a part with our law enforcement partners and communities."
Langley created Flock Safety five years ago after an experience in his own neighborhood and conversations with the Atlanta Police Department on how to prevent crime. He said when looking at some of the cities Flock Safety works with, they're seeing a 70%-90% reduction in crime.
"We're really, really excited about what we're doing to help those communities," he said. "Our mission as a company is to eliminate crime and technology is going to play a big part in that. I'm 100% confident crime is going to come down in America, violent crime, as well, is going to come down."
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