ATLANTA — An armed man who robbed a Krispy Kreme store in Southwest Atlanta on Monday and later shot two employees at a rental store nearby died in a gun battle with an off-duty deputy who was providing security at another business nearby.
“I was sitting at the counter, and this guy comes up from behind me and says, ‘Give me your keys’. I turned around and I didn’t understand, but he had a gun pointed right at my face,” Dan Kniesly said.
Kniesly is a manager at Easy Rental store on Lee Street. He told Channel 2’s Tom Regan that the suspect burst into his store after robbing the donut shop around the corner.
He said the gunman was looking to steal a car from someone after his getaway driver left him behind.
When Kniesly hesitated to turn over his car keys, the suspect grew impatient.
“Immediately, he just shot me,” Kniesly said.
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Kniesly said the gunman shot him in the foot with an automatic handgun. When Kniesly ran out the door, the gunman went to the back of the store and demanded the car keys of a co-worker.
“He gave him his keys, but he then turned around and shot him anyway, and made him lay on the ground,” Kniesly said.
Kniesly said the gunman ran out the backdoor. His co-worker locked the door, and the suspect became trapped in a fenced area behind the store.
That’s when a retired Fulton County Deputy Lt. Gerald Johnson, who was working an off-duty security job confronted the gunman, who was also armed with an assault-style rifle or a shotgun.
“They were shooting back and forth,” Kniesly said.
A witness told Regan he heard 25 to 30 shots fired. The deputy sustained a gunshot wound to the hand.
The suspect died after being shot multiple times in the gunbattle.
“He got shot three times in the chest and other places,” Kniesly said.
Authorities said the wounded deputy was treated and released from Grady Memorial Hospital.
Kniesly said his co-worker, who was shot in the heel, remains in the hospital. He credits the deputy for taking courageous action to save innocent lives.
“He was brave because he was confronting a guy who had what looked like an AK-47, but it was really a shotgun. So, he was a very brave deputy,” Kniesly said.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the officer-involved shooting, has not released the name of the suspect who died.
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