MONROE, Ga. – The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has released police video showing what led up to a deadly officer-involved shooting in Walton County Thursday.
The video shows a Monroe police officer encountering Mahlon Summerour, who was wearing a curtain over his clothes and had what officers believe was a gun in his hands. The video stops just before the officer shot and killed Summerour. During the encounter, Summerour points the weapon at the officer who then shot him.
t happened around 9 a.m. in the 400 block of East Marable Street.
The GBI said after the officers ordered him to turn over the weapon and he didn’t do so, one of the two officers fired his gun at the man, striking him in the chest. Investigators said what Summerhour was holding turned out to be a replica machine gun.
Medics rushed the 63-year-old man to an area hospital where he later died.
Monroe Police Chief R.V. Watts told FOX 5 News he had reviewed video of the incident and felt “very comfortable with the officer’s actions.”
Chief Watts asked the public to keep the officers and the family of the dead man in their prayers.
Summerour’s family told FOX 5 News the veteran had been battling mental illness for years and would sometimes do “outlandish kind of stuff” when he was off his meds, but usually, a neighbor would help him back to his home.
Summerour, who is known in the neighborhood as the “country guy” leaves behind three children.
No funeral plans have been released to the public.
