A police officer was shot dead while responding to a call of a suspicious person in central Georgia, authorities said.
The officer, Tim Smith, leaves behind two sons, a daughter and a stepson, his fiancee Chelsea Clark told CNN. Smith would have turned 31 on Monday, she said.
They had been a couple for two years.
“We were engaged. We were trying to get on our feet before getting married,” she said, explaining that Smith always hugged her and his children and told them he loved them every day before work.
The shooting occurred Saturday night after Smith got the call in a residential area in Eastman, special agent Scott Whitley of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations said.
While on patrol, Smith encountered the subject and exited his car. That’s when he was fatally shot, Whitley said.
As of Sunday afternoon, Eastman police were “still working to apprehend the shooter,” GBI spokesman Scott Dutton said.
There is no suspect in custody.
Eastman is in Dodge County, about 130 miles southeast of Atlanta. Police departments from around Georgia and the nation took to social media to share their condolences with Eastman police and Smith’s family.
Officers attacked in New York, suburban Atlanta
Another Georgia officer was shot Sunday morning in Marietta, northwest of Atlanta. That officer, whose name has not been released, was responding to a report of a car break-in when one of two suspects opened fire, striking the officer, police said.
Officers returned fire and wounded one of the suspects. Both the wounded officer and suspect are expected to survive, Marietta police said.
It’s been a violent weekend for police in the U.S. In a separate incident, a man stabbed a police officer Saturday in Long Island, New York, authorities said.
When police arrived at the scene, they were met by a man armed with knives, Suffolk County Police Department said. The man stabbed the officer in the face before another officer shot the suspect once in the abdomen, police said.
The suspect was hospitalized in critical condition. The stabbed officer was transported to hospital, where he had facial surgery and is expected to survive, police said.
