Crime & Safety

Post Office Shooting: SWAT Team Nabs Suspect

Quantez Tyre, 22, will be charged with the murder of a postal worker Monday night in Decatur, says sheriff's office.

DECATUR, GA — DeKalb County authorities announced Friday that they arrested the man wanted for shooting to death a U.S. postal worker Monday night in Decatur. Quantez D’Ante Tyre, 22, is accused of killing Tyrika Terrell, also 22, at the Wesley Chapel Post Office.

A SWAT team with the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office took Tyre into custody following a two-hour standoff Friday afternoon at a relative's house in Decatur, said Cynthia Williams, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office. Tyre is being treated at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta for self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Tyre was Terrell's estranged boyfriend and the father of her 6-month-old daughter, say media reports. On Monday, she called 911 to tell police that Tyre was stalking her outside the post office, and had threatened to kill her a week earlier, the sheriff's office said in a statement.

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Before police arrived, Tyre confronted Terrell near the building's loading dock and shot her four times in the head, say authorities. He fled the scene; Terrell was taken to Grady hospital, where she died soon afterward.

After four days on the run, sheriff's deputies and U.S. marshals tracked down Tyre at around noon Friday to the relative's home along Snapfinger Road in Decatur. As other occupants fled the house, Tyre holed himself up in a room upstairs with a weapon and refused to come out.

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In a two-hour standoff, deputies tried to negotiate his surrender, but Tyre "set a fire inside the home and shots were fired," the sheriff's office said. Tyre had apparenty shot himself; when he came out of the house, SWAT deputies surrounded him and took him into custody.

Tyre is being treated at Grady Memorial Hospital in the custody of the sheriff's office. When he's released, he will be taken to the DeKalb County Jail and charged with felony murder, the office said.

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