Crime & Safety
Suspect Killed Inside Police Car Slipped Out of Handcuffs: Police Chief
Atlanta police will investigate how the woman found in a stolen truck was not searched for a weapon before being put in the squad car.
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Atlanta Police Chief George Turner said Friday that a woman who was shot and killed while firing at police from the back of a patrol car near the Fulton County Courthouse had slipped out of her handcuffs and retrieved a firearm that had been undetected by officers.
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According to WSB-TV, Alexia Christian, 25, had a long rap sheet with Atlanta police and had escaped from handcuffs at least once before. On Thursday, Christian had been detained by officers Jeffery Cook and Omar Thyme after she was found inside a reportedly-stolen white Ford F150 inside a parking lot near the Fulton County Courthouse.
Police said in a statement that the truck had been reported stolen from 4336 Fulton Industrial Parkway and had been tracked to the vicinity of 111 Martin Luther King Jr., Drive by the victim.
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Turner added that the officers who detained Christian somehow missed a weapon concealed on Christian’s person before placing her in the patrol car, which allowed her to conceal a handgun she had taken from the stolen truck, WSB-TV said. Once the car was underway, Christian wriggled out of the handcuffs and opened fire on Cook and Thyme inside the car as they approached the Underground Atlanta police station.
Once Christian opened fire, police say that the officers in the car bailed out and fired 10 shots into the car, fatally wounding the woman.
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