With a little less than two months left in 2024, the number of officer-involved shootings the GBI has been asked to investigate this year is the lowest it has been since at least 2020.
As of Thursday, the GBI had opened investigations into 77 shootings involving Georgia law enforcement this year, according to agency data. That’s 11 fewer than this time last year, and 23 fewer than in 2022. In 2021 and 2020, there were 84 such shootings in the same time frame. Data for pre-pandemic years is not immediately available.
By the end of last year, the GBI had opened 103 police shooting investigations. That was lower than 2022′s 112 cases but higher than 2021′s 100. In 2020, there were 96.
While the pace has slowed, two cases have already been opened within the first week of November, one in North Georgia and one in the state’s southern half.
On Sunday, police in Cornelia, a small town northeast of Gainesville and west of Toccoa, shot a man after his SUV crashed into a business.
Officers got the call shortly before 6 p.m. When they arrived, police encountered Christian Drake Shurtleff, 33, of Mt. Airy, who was “immediately uncooperative and combative,” the GBI said. His 7-year-old daughter was also in the vehicle and was safely removed without injury.
During the fight with officers, one of them shot Shurtleff, according to the GBI. He was taken to a hospital. An update on his condition was not provided.
Shurtleff faces a charge of felony obstruction of a law enforcement officer, and more charges are expected, the GBI said.
Two days earlier, two men died and a sheriff’s deputy was injured during a shootout near bars in Remerton, a small city near Valdosta. The deceased men have not been publicly identified, and details of what unfolded at the scene are unclear.
The incident started around 1:30 a.m. as four Lowndes County deputies were working off-duty jobs outside the bars. A fight broke out and escalated to gunfire between two people, the GBI said.
“This shooting is believed to have been what created the initial law enforcement response,” the state agency added.
Immediately following the shooting, someone fired more shots, and a deputy was struck, according to the GBI. That officer was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive as he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Both the Remerton and Cornelia shootings remain under investigation.
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