A Georgia sheriff and a deputy were shot Sunday night when they responded to a domestic violence call. The alleged shooter? A former police officer.
The shooting happened in Habersham County, about 85 miles north of Atlanta.
Sheriff Joey Terrell and Deputy Bill Zigan responded to a domestic violence call and found a woman dead in the garage of the residence, Rusty Andrews, with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told reporters.
The two went inside where “it appears that they were ambushed,” Andrews said.
The shooter fled, and was later found dead outside the home along with another man, officials said. No information on the second man was immediately available.
The shooter was a former police officer, said Sherry Lang with the GBI.
Authorities didn’t immediately say how the shooter died, or who the second man was.
Phil Sutton, Habersham county manager, told CNN affiliate WSB-TV that the reason the sheriff responded to the call is “probably because he knew the person who was involved in the incident.”
Terrell and Zigan suffered injuries that were not life-threatening.
The Habersham County sheriff’s department made national headlines last year after the department SWAT unit, based on word from an informant, conducted a drug raid at a house, throwing a flash-bang grenade and seriously burning a 19-month-old baby.
Officers did not find methamphetamine at the house, only residue.