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Georgia police officer shot, killed; police searching for suspects

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A police officer in Gwinnett County, Georgia, checking out a suspicious vehicle near a Snellville-area middle school, was shot and killed Saturday as the car sped away. Four suspects were on the run Saturday night.

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The officer, Antwan Toney, died after he was taken to Gwinnett Medical Center, according to the police department. He had been on the Gwinnett police force for three years.

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Toney and other officers were responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle parked near Shiloh Middle School on Saturday afternoon, police said.

When officers approached, the suspects fired through their vehicle’s window, hitting Toney before driving off, said police spokesman Jake Smith. The officers returned fire, but it’s unknown whether the suspects were hit or injured.

The suspects crashed their vehicle a short time later, and as many as four people ran from the scene.

Law enforcement officers, helicopters, SWAT teams and K-9 units swarmed the area to search for the suspects, checking nearby buildings and wooded areas. DeKalb County police were called in to help.

A witness described one of the suspects to police as a 6-foot-tall man with long dreadlocks, green sweatpants and a gray T-shirt. Descriptions of the other suspects weren’t available.

Toney was a member of the Gwinnett Police Department’s Uniform Division, and he was working his shift on patrol Saturday.

Toney is the first Gwinnett officer killed in the line of duty in years.

In 1993, Officer Chris Magill was killed by a drunk driver while engaged in a traffic stop with another drunk driver.

Three Gwinnett officers were gunned down in 1964 when they were investigating a "suspicious activity" call near Norcross. The officers — Jerry Everett, Marvin Gravitt and Ralph Davis — were handcuffed together and shot with their own weapons.

Saturday's shooting came after three separate officer-involved shootings in Georgia on Thursday that left two men dead.

In one of the previous shootings, a state patrolman was shot at close range along I-75 south in Bartow County but survived because he was wearing a body armor vest. Two troopers returned fire and killed the original shooter, according to the Georgia State Patrol.

The other shooting death occurred in Monroe when a man carrying a replica Thompson submachine gun allegedly pointed it at an officer, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

In the third incident, a suspect shot at police in Richland. but no one died.