SMYRNA, Ga. — Two Smyrna Police officers were shot while responding to a report of shots fired and a burglary at the Adventure Outdoors gun store. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation released preliminary details about the incident on Saturday morning.
According to Smyrna Police Chief Keith Zgonc, officers went to the store shortly before midnight after two calls came in to the city’s 911 center about shots fired and a burglary in progress.
“When officers arrived they encountered an armed gunman in the store, he’d made his way inside the store. Gunfire erupted between the gunman and officers on scene,” Zgonc said at a news briefing early Saturday morning. “Officers from the Smyrna police department and the Cobb County Police Department returned fire. Two Smyrna police officers were injured and wounded in the shooting. They were both transported to a local area hospital where they are recovering from their injuries.”
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New details on what led to the shootout between officers and an attempted burglar were shared by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The GBI said, according to their investigation, an employee met officers at the store around 11:45 p.m. saying someone was inside.
According to the agency, when officers tried to take the man, later identified as Emilio Aguilar, 21, into their custody, he got away from the officers and started firing a rifle slung around his neck, hitting two members of the Smyrna Police Department in the leg.
Just before the shooting, three Cobb County police officers had gotten to the scene, and they fired back at Aguilar, killing him.
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Zgonc said that per department policy on shootings where officers are involved, the GBI was investigating the incident.
Cobb County Police Department Chief Stuart VanHoozer also spoke at the news briefing, which was held at Belmont Elementary School, who said CCPD first responded to the incident after getting information around 12:16 a.m.
Cobb officers arrived at 12:22 a.m., VanHoozer said, and “of course gunfire occurred and the suspect was shot and killed.”
VanHoozer said no Cobb officers had been injured in the shooting, and that the department was obviously “keeping the Smyrna police family and our own police family in our thoughts and prayers for sure as we do very constantly.”
Zgonc said both of the officers who were shot during the incident are at the hospital recovering, and that “one is still being treated, the other is expected to be released,” but that the injuries for both were non-life-threatening.
As far as what prompted the whole incident, Zgonc said they don’t know yet why Aguilar was breaking into the store.
“The store, due to the timing, the store was closed at the time. So I do not know who made the initial 911 call of the shots fired or how those calls initially came into our 911 center, I just know that we received two calls back to back,” Zgonc said.
The only suspect from the incident, Aguilar, is dead, there were no others, according to police.
VanHoozer said that the large police response from multiple agencies was the result of multiple factors.
“There’s gonna be a lot of officers come when one of their comrades is hurt, one of their brothers in blue is hurt. And we don’t know what we have,” VanHoozer said. “We don’t know how many suspects we have but we do know that they’re in a gun store with lots of weapons, lots of long weapons, lots of pistols, lots of ammo, and so yes sir we had a lot of officers come. That’s the reason that they came.”
Zgonc also said that the fast response and help from CCPD was a result of the partnerships between the various law enforcement agencies in Cobb County.
The identities of the officers was not released.
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