Man fatally shot by police at DeKalb gas station after being offered a ride

A man with a gun was shot and killed by police Saturday morning, moments after officers gave him a ride to a DeKalb County gas station, authorities said.

The deadly shooting happened about 8 a.m. outside a Shell station on Candler Road, DeKalb police spokeswoman Michaela Vincent said. Officers picked up the man, later identified as 33-year-old Christian Smith of Ellenwood, after responding to calls about a suspicious person walking in the median on I-20.

“When the officer arrived on the scene, the officer approached him and offered a ride to the nearest gas station, safe out of harm’s way,” Vincent said in a statement.

According to the GBI, officers learned Smith had an active warrant for his arrest after pulling into the gas station parking lot. Smith was shot when officers tried to arrest him, the state agency said.

Vincent said the shooting was prompted when Smith “produced a firearm.” While the GBI did not confirm that account, officials with the agency said a gun was found lying next to Smith’s body.

“The moments leading up to the officers discharging their firearm are under investigation,” Vincent said, adding that no officers were injured.

Channel 2 Action News reported seeing the man’s body lying in the road following the shooting, and said a DeKalb police cruiser appeared to have been shot multiple times, shattering a back window.

Saturday’s incident was the 73rd officer-involved shooting the GBI has investigated since the start of the year, and the eighth in the past month. Of this year’s police shootings, 42 have been fatal, records show.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also tracks officer-involved shootings that don’t involve the GBI, and those numbers sometimes differ from the GBI’s tally.