Crime & Safety

One ACC Police Officer Killed, Another Wounded

Police searching for suspect driving a silver Geo Prism.

UPDATED 6:00 p.m. Also added new videos and pictures.

An Athens Clarke County Police officer was shot and killed and another officer was wounded in a Westside apartment complex early this afternoon, according to ACC Police spokeswoman Hilda Sorrow.

She didn’t know the names of the officers, but said they had been taken to Athens Regional Medical Center.

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The shooting occurred in the Cascades on the River apartment complex, on Sycamore Road near the Atlanta Highway, Sorrow said. The police are searching for 33-year-old Jamie Hood, an African American man considered armed and dangerous who lives in the area. He is said to be wearing shorts and a white t-shirt with yellow writing on the front. 

Police report that Hood may be driving a silver Geo Prism that was seen at Old Hull Rd. and the Athens Perimeter.

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Hood was convicted of an armed robbery committed in Clarke County and sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to public records. He was released from Macon State Prison in July 2009. According to the Georgia Department of Corrections, Hood sports several tatoos: Job with a female on his chest, "Robert/Dad" on his right arm and "Mom Azale "with a heart on his left arm. 

According to a 2009 story in the Athens Banner Herald, Hood, of Ranick Road in Winterville, robbed at gunpoint a Poppa John's Pizza delivery man on July 29, 1997. At the Waterford Apartments on Oconee Street, Hood shoved a gun in the face of the delivery man, who threw down $3. 

That was his first incarceration.

Sorrow said the last time an Athens Clarke County police officer was shot was in 1982.

The wide police search for Jamie Hood resulted in disruption of the usual pattern of life in Clarke County. Seveal roads were blocked off in and around Atlanta Highway and Sycamore Road. The Athens Clarke County School District  called parents whose children ride buses that their children might be late returning from school.

At 2:30 or so, police were flagging down motorists along Winterville Road. Ranick Road is a short road that connects Spring Valley and Winterville road, and the house where the Hood family lives is the only one on the road. One Winterville resident who passed by said she saw several police officers  in the area, and some of them were talking to an older black man.

Robert and Azale Hood had several sons, and are no strangers to sorrow and trouble. An Athens-Clarke County Police officer shot and killed Timothy Hood, 22, in November 2001 after Hood allegedly put a gun to the officer's head, according to the Athens Banner Herald.

In 2004, a story in the Athens Banner Herald says, members of the Hood family tangled with the Dorsey family of adjacent Sartain Dr. on Sept. 21 of that year. That incident found Robert Hood, Sr., at the Dorsey house, armed with a screwdriver and quarreling about a dog. He was subsequently badly beaten and taken to the hospital. Later that day, a group of men, some of them Robert Hood's sons, drove by the Dorsey house and fired at it.

are not under any lockdown, and all activities are going on as scheduled, according to Superintendent John Jackson. The student services director is monitoring the situation with authorities, and if a need arises there are several ways to notify parents including the telephone notification system, the website and the email listserv.

Sorrow said the last time an Athens police officer was shot was in 1982.

Note, this story is updating frequently on Athens Patch.


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