‘He’s shooting at everybody’: 911 calls reveal chaos before deputies killed gunman
Frantic calls to 911 captured officers' gunfire that killed a Macon armed robbery suspect earlier this month.
Shamir De'Angelo Terry, 39, suffered fatal gunshot wounds at the hands of Bibb County sheriff's deputies responding to a holdup at the Circle K at 2590 Riverside Drive that led to shots fired near the neighboring Applebee's.
"Right now he's shooting at everybody. Get the police here now!" a man in the restaurant's parking lot told a Macon-Bibb County operator late on June 2.
A clerk at the Shell gas station and convenience store that borders Pierce Avenue had already dialed 911 to report the holdup at about 11 p.m. that Saturday night.
"We just got robbed," the employee said before noticing a deputy was being flagged down in the parking lot. "Oh, and the police out here."
Macon-Bibb County operators talked to at least three people the night Terry died after allegedly raising his gun toward a passing car, according to recordings released to The Telegraph through an open records request.
"Buddy at Applebee's shooting guns, man.... "He's shooting the gun right now," the parking lot caller says before the call ends.
Another man calls 911 and stays on the line for three and half minutes.
"Hey, you gotta guy over here at Applebee's on Riverside. Shots fired," he tells the woman on the line.
"Shots fired at Applebee's on Riverside?" she asks.
"Yeah. He just robbed the Sunoco [sic]," he says.
"Oh my god," she answers.
The caller sees a deputy and tells her an officer is on the scene.
"He just fired at the deputy.... Right there, that cop's coming up to him right there. Tell him to watch it!" the man says as he's describing the gunman as a black man in a white tank top and black pants.
"He's in the back of Applebee's," he says; the operator relays the statement.
After losing sight of the gunman, the caller sees Terry going up Pierce Avenue and another deputy arrives.
"Right near that deputy, right there, right there! That deputy's going right back to him," the man says before at least eight gunshots ring out. "I think he's down.... He's down. They got him."
The caller says he's getting off the phone because he's "out with the deputies" as the sound of a siren approaches.
Last week, Bibb County District Attorney David Cooke exonerated deputies Christopher Williams and Christopher Scudari in the shooting, saying: "This wasn't a close call. The evidence was clear."
Investigators said Williams initially ordered Terry to stop, but Terry fired at the officer, who took cover behind a dumpster and his patrol car.
Terry refused continued commands to stop and yelled: "I'm not going back to jail," the DA reported.
An attempt to use a Taser on Terry failed, he said.
About that time, Scudari arrived and both deputies fired at Terry as he lifted his gun.
He was hit multiple times and died at Medical Center, Navicent Health.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and prosecutors also reviewed video from officers' body cameras.
They are not releasing those images pending the case against India JaQuary Whitson, 36, who is accused of giving Terry the gun and driving him to the store.
Whitson is charged with murder and armed robbery in the death of Terry, who railed about officer-involved shootings in a November Facebook rant where he threatened to kill President Donald Trump.
This story was originally published June 19, 2018 at 2:25 PM with the headline "‘He’s shooting at everybody’: 911 calls reveal chaos before deputies killed gunman."