ATLANTA — The man accused of hijacking a Gwinnett County transit bus and taking multiple people hostage, killing one of them, is in custody at the Fulton County Jail and facing more than two dozen charges.
Joseph Grier was arrested Tuesday after leading law enforcement officer on a multi-jurisdictional high-speed chase on I-85 while hijacking a public transport bus.
The chase started when Grief hijacked a bus from downtown Atlanta with 17 people on board, holding a gun to the driver’s head.
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Grier, 39 of Stone Mountain, had been arrested 19 times before and was a convicted felon, according to Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum.
Police said the incident started around 4:30 p.m. on Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard, when APD officers responded to reports of a gunman on the bus.
Schierbaum said a family member of someone on the bus had called 911 while their family member texted them about the bus being hijacked and that the passengers and driver were being held hostage.
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Soon after, more calls came in from people on the bus, calling for help.
“It was that information that our call takers and dispatchers were hearing that was fed initially to the Atlanta Police Department, and then to the Georgia State Patrol, and then our partners at Gwinnett and DeKalb County to craft and end to this hostage situation,” Schierbaum said.
Georgia State Patrol, DeKalb County Police, the DeKalb County Marshall’s Office and Atlanta police all responded to the incident.
Eventually, the bus was stopped, after police threw spike strips onto the road and disabled the bus’ tires.
After the bus stopped, multiple agencies at the s scene moved in and passengers started getting off the bus.
One person was killed with what police said was a gunshot wound to the head. They have not yet been identified.
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