Hampton (Georgia), Jul 17 (AP) Officers shot and killed a man wanted in the weekend killings of four people near Atlanta, and a sheriff's deputy and a police officer were hurt during the attempt to take the suspect into custody, an official said.

Henry County Sheriff's spokesperson Syntonnia Moore said suspect Andre Longmore was fatally shot during a widespread search for the 40-year-old man. The intense manhunt began after the shootings on Saturday morning in a subdivision of Hampton, a community south of Georgia's main city.

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Moore said law enforcement forces killed Longmore in a nearby area of Clayton County, adding a Henry County sheriff's deputy and a Clayton County police officer were injured in the attempt to arrest Longmore.

Moore said she had no update on the condition of either officer. Authorities planned a Sunday afternoon briefing to provide more details.

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The development came shortly after a deputy US Marshal, Van Grady, disclosed the search for Longmore had come to an end.

“All I can tell you at this time is that the threat posed by Mr. Longmore to the public has been eliminated," he said shortly before word of the suspect's death was made public.

Longmore (40), was accused of fatally shooting the victims on Saturday morning before driving away from the Dogwood Lakes subdivision in Hampton on Atlanta's outskirts, police said. Longmore was wanted on four counts of murder in the deaths.

Neighbour Frankie Worth said he saw that danger up close. He said he heard a gunshot as he was reaching for his living room window to open the blinds and figure out how much yard work he had to do on Saturday.

Worth said on Sunday he ducked “just for a second.” Then he looked back out the window. “You know, when you get incoming, you've got to know where it's coming from,” said Worth, who identified himself as a Marine Corps veteran.

A neighbour Worth knows as Andre was standing in the middle of the street, Worth said, with his hands jerking from the recoil of firing a silver handgun.

Worth said the man appeared to have fired at a small white car being driven by another neighbour, “an older white gentleman,” who lives across from Worth. He said the shooting happened on the edge of a cul-de-sac where they all live, with Longmore about 12 feet away as the car moved off. Worth said he couldn't see if anyone else was in the car.

Worth said he first thought he was witnessing a road rage confrontation, but said the man moved deliberately.

“He didn't appear angry, upset, agitated,” Worth said.

Worth said Longmore appeared to evaluate whether he needed to shoot again and then “started walking casually” toward the entrance to the subdivision, before picking up his pace to a “brisk stride.” Worth said he ran upstairs, watching Longmore disappear behind some trees, as he called police.

Worth said he heard no more gunshots after that.

Public records show Longmore lived in the neighbourhood, about 40 km south of downtown Atlanta, where about 40 houses on two streets flank a lake.

After the shooting, Longmore fled in a black GMC Acadia SUV, police said.

Ron Foster, who lives on the main road outside the subdivision entrance, said Longmore drove through his yard and his neighbour's yard, destroying multiple ornamental windmills and leaving tire tracks still visible in the grass a day later.

Foster was inside his house and heard the crunch of metal, coming out to find the destroyed windmills.

“What was going through that man's mind after he did all he did?” Foster wondered. “It was unreal.”

Foster didn't know at the time that multiple people had been shot but said he got a call from a friend who is a retired police officer.

“He called me and said Ron, y'all stay in or go somewhere,'" Foster said "We did.”

Foster and other neighbours said Longmore could sometimes be seen walking along the road toward Hampton's small downtown, less than a km away. Foster said Longmore once approached him while Foster was mowing his yard.

“He came up to me and said You're the police, aren't you?'" Foster said. "He came up to me and tried to argue with me.”

Hampton is home to the Atlanta Motor Speedway, Georgia's racetrack for NASCAR events. The town of 8,500 people also has benefited from Georgia's movie production boom.

The shootings marked the 31st mass killing of 2023, taking the lives of at least 153 people this year, according to a database maintained by The AP and USA Today in a partnership with Northeastern University. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)