FOREST PARK, Ga. -- A suspect is dead after two police officers were shot in Forest Park on Wednesday.
Officers responded to a call of man driving recklessly on a motorcycle on Mitchell Street, which is near Forest Park Middle School around 10:40 a.m. The suspect got off of the vehicle and fled on foot. He ended up behind a house. Once the officers rounded the corner, the suspect opened fire on them, police said.
According to Forest Park police, one officer was shot in the leg; the other was shot in the neck. One officer went into surgery and was listed in critical condition. The other's injuries were said to be non life-threatening.
Responding officers got the injured officers out of the way and set up a perimeter, according to police.
Photos | Forest Park police officers shot
Forest Park Police Major Chris Matson said later that the suspect, identified as 30-year-old James Jacob Bailey, was found dead behind a house. He did not say how he died. Matson said that there was believed to have been only one suspect involved.
"Forest Park Middle School has been placed on lockdown and the area has been contained as a search for the suspect is underway," according to Clayton County Police.
That lockdown was later lifted. Authorities said that no children were ever in any danger, and that the school was placed on lockdown as a precaution.
Each police officer has been on the force for more than three years and they were thought to be in their 20s, Matson said.
"To have two officers shot -- that really taxes on your emotions," Matson said.
Matson did not indicate the type of gun used by the suspect.
At least six different police agencies responded to the shooting.
Yvette Shepard said she saw the scene as he headed home from work. She said her daughter was a police officer in Orlando, Fla., who lost her life in January 2016.
"The officers are only out here doing their job," she said. "It's just crazy."
Shepard continues to carry the photo of her daughter.
"I ride with this picture everyday. I talk to her everyday"
Another witness, Curtis Longino, from the Greater Restoration Ministries in Forest Park, said that he was at City Hall when he heard the shots.
"You could vaguely hear the gunfire, but you’ve seen the police and the ambulance responding...then you saw, all of a sudden, you started hearing all of the sirens so once you seen all of them," he said.
Longino said he had seen Bailey on the street before, but "didn't know him personally."
"As we say in the church, the wages of sin is death," he said. "So you know karma is something else. And his just came a little quicker so we’re not prying on him wishing for him to die, but you know you do wrong wrong will follow you."
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