A Georgia police officer who was killed in the line of duty had arrested the man accused of shooting him dead just days earlier.
Chris Fisher, 36, an officer with the Warm Springs Police Department, about 70 miles south of Atlanta, was sitting in his patrol car after a traffic stop Tuesday night when a driver in a black 2026 Chevrolet Silverado pulled up alongside him and fired multiple shots into the car, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.
The shots struck Fisher, a husband and father of two, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The driver, Jimmie Lee Steverson, 23, of Warm Springs, drove off, sparking a widespread manhunt that ended the next morning when officers stopped a car about 193 miles away in Anderson, South Carolina.
Officers found Steverson in the passenger seat with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was taken to a local hospital, where he later died.
Court records show Fisher had just arrested Steverson Friday morning, charging him with marijuana possession and firearms charges. Steverson was released on bond, WSB-TV reported.
Fisher had just joined the Warm Springs Police Department in May and was promoted to sergeant in July.
Members of the community, a town of about 450 people with only 10 police officers, rallied behind Fisher and his family after the shooting.
“He was a really nice guy,” Ada Lee, who works at Mac’s Barbecue, told the outlet. “He always came into the barbecue and checked on us and made sure everything was good with us. I don’t think there was a day we didn’t see him.”
She said he had just come to the restaurant on Tuesday, hours before his death.
“It’s tragic, it’s tragic, especially to somebody who is just so kind,” she said.
Another employee at the restaurant, Fallon Hart, remembered Fisher for “the loyalty and compassion.”
“I’d see him sit at this stop sign, actually, catching people running the stop sign down the road and he’d come in and we’d joke, ‘don’t give me a ticket,’ and he’d say he’d just want to get some food today,” Hart said.
Fisher’s body was taken to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Medical Examiner’s Office, where an autopsy will be conducted.
Authorities did not share a motive in the shooting. Their investigation is ongoing.
