An Atlanta-area police officer was shot and critically wounded last night when he responded to a call of a suspicious person and showed up at the wrong house, authorities say. The homeowner was also shot in the leg and his dog was killed in what DeKalb County police Chief Cedric Alexander is calling a complicated shooting. Officers fired their weapons, the chief says, but it's not clear if the homeowner had a gun. Alexander says his department would typically handle the investigation since it didn't involve a fatality, but because of the unusual situation, he has asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into it. "We did respond to the wrong residence tonight and then these other circumstances unfolded," he says.
Alexander says the situation happened like this: A neighborhood resident called 911 to report a suspicious person and described a home to the dispatcher. Three officers responded to a house that fit the description the caller gave 911. The officers went to the back of the home and found that a screen door and a rear door were unlocked. "That in and of itself would probably suggest to anyone that it is possible that there could be intruders inside, but it turned out not to be the case," Alexander says. "Somewhere at the rear of that home, some things happened that have yet to be determined." The officers had just entered the home when the gunfire erupted. "There was gunfire, I just cannot tell you who fired and who did not," the chief says. (More police shooting stories.)
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