According to authorities, 65-year-old Herbert Stanley Tate fired his pistol downtown, pointed it at a policeman, then held Hall County Sheriff's Office SWAT Team members at bay all morning before shooting at officers and wounding a deputy, 35-year-old Joe Groover, and dying when they returned fire. (See separate story.)
Groover, a three-year veteran officer, underwent more than four hours of surgery on his arm at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and is now resting in the ICU.
Lula Elementary School was locked down during the incident and residents near the scene were evacuated from their homes.
No, Mayor Milton Turner acknowledged, it definitely was not a normal morning.
"It is an unusual situation," Turner said, as he praised the conduct of both the Hall County Sheriff's Department and the Hall County School System.
Turner said he had known Tate for 30 years, since Turner was a teenager, and that Tate was troubled.
"He's been upset over a lot of things. I'm sad to see that this has taken place today," Turner said.
People who had to leave their homes near the standoff site on Banks Street stood bewildered in clusters in the City Hall parking lot, where they were sent after being told they had to leave their homes.
"I was wondering what was going on," one of them said. "Law cars came from everywhere with their lights going, their sirens going."
Overhead, helicopters from Atlanta television stations dotted the blue sky, and two Life Flight helicopters flew in and landed. One of them transported the wounded deputy to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta for treatment.
"I'm glad to see it's over," Turner said, as sheriff's officers and emergency units began leaving the scene shortly before 1 p.m., but the investigation continued at Tate's home with a command unit and sheriff's cars parked along the curb.
Banks street remained cordoned off with bright yellow crime scene tape.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2008/8/212278