A man accused of opening fire in an Atlanta medical facility waiting room Wednesday, killing one woman and wounding four others, is in custody, police said.
Atlanta police announced the apprehension of 24-year-old Deion Patterson at around 8 p.m., almost eight hours after the deadly shooting.
The shooting occurred shortly after noon, police said. Patterson fled in a vehicle he carjacked and later abandoned, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum told reporters.
The suspect and that stolen vehicle were seen by Department of Transportation cameras in Cobb County, northwest of Atlanta, around 12:30 p.m., county police Sgt. Wayne Delk said.
The shooting happened around 12:08 p.m. in an 11th floor waiting room of a Northside Hospital medical facility in Midtown Atlanta, Schierbaum said.
The suspect, later identified as Patterson, was able to flee the area as law enforcement descended on the shooting scene in Midtown, he said.
The victims, all of whom are women, have not been publicly identified.
The victim who was killed was 39. The four people who were wounded were ages 71, 56, 39 and 25, Schierbaum said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the victims were patients or hospital employees.
“It’s still too soon to know why these individuals were chosen,” Schierbaum said of the victims. (NBC)
