Suspect in Ga. police shootings dead, likely by own hand

Associated Press

A man wanted for killing two Georgia police officers was found dead Thursday, apparently fatally shooting himself before a SWAT team stormed a home where a tipster reported the suspect was hiding.

The manhunt for 32-year-old Minquell Lembrick ended a day after a gunman killed Americus Police Officer Nicholas Smarr and Officer Jody Smith of Georgia Southwestern State University. Both officers were shot as they responded to a domestic-disturbance call in Americus, a rural city 130 miles south of Atlanta. The shooting happened at an apartment complex near campus.

Police identified Lembrick as a suspect in the shootings and offered a $70,000 reward for information leading to his capture. The SWAT team was sent to the house in Americus after authorities received a tip, said Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Nelly Miles.

SWAT officers emerged from the home a short time after entering. Americus Police Chief Mark Scott told a news conference they found Lembrick’s body inside. He said the first officers on the scene heard a gunshot inside the house before the SWAT team arrived.

Lembrick died from “what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Scott said. “The suspect has been positively identified as Mr. Lembrick.”

Lembrick had an arrest warrant charging him with kidnapping and other counts when Smarr and Smith encountered him Wednesday at an apartment complex where a domestic dispute had been reported, Scott said previously.

But the officers didn’t know whom they were dealing with when they responded to the 911 call.