MACON OFFICERS SHOOT MAN TO DEATH

Police Say They Returned Fire During Drug Stakeout

Two Macon police officers shot and killed one of two gunmen who walked
up from behind and fired on them during a drug stakeout late Thursday
night. The suspects approached the prone officers, asked "What are you
doing here?" and opened fire when the officers identified themselves
late Thursday, authorities said.

The officers, members of the department's fatigues-clad Crime
Suppression Unit, were lying along a wooded trail near a row of
east-side duplexes around 11:25 p.m. when the suspects apparently
happened upon them.

Officers Heath Holcomb and Sandra Aldridge, both 26 and three-year
veterans of the force, were not wounded. The two are part of a
five-person unit monitoring alleged drug dealing in a pocket of the
Fort Hill community notorious for street-level crack cocaine sales.

Police identified the dead man as 25-year-old Patrick
Long.

"Both men challenged the officers, at which time the officers
identified themselves as police and directed the individuals to move
on," deputy police chief Willie J. May said, reading from a prepared
statement. "At this same moment, one of the officers noticed that one
of the men was armed with a handgun. Instinctively, the officer
commanded the individuals to 'get down,' but instead they began to
retreat away from the officers, backing away.

"Both men fired several shots at officers, who returned fire upon
being engaged."

The suspects ran in different directions, firing at the officers while
fleeing, the deputy chief said.

May added that although investigators did not find any guns, they
found 9 mm bullet casings. May said that is "substantial evidence"
that the suspects shot at the officers. The officers were armed with
10 mm Glocks.

The second gunman, wearing a Hawaiian-style shirt, got away. As of
late Friday, he had not been identified.

Shot twice, Long died at The Medical Center of Central Georgia shortly
after the 11:25 p.m. shootout, police said.

Authorities did not say which officer fired the fatal shot, but said
that, during the exchange, one officer fired three times and the other
shot twice. Results of an autopsy performed Friday afternoon at the
state crime lab in Atlanta were not immediately available, authorities
said.

Long, who according to sources close to the case was shot once in his
side and possibly once in the head, collapsed beside a vacant duplex
at the northeast corner of Mitchell and Bowman streets. The duplex
sits across from Fort Hill Cemetery.

The area, east of Gray Highway, about midway between Emery Highway and
Shurling Drive, has for years been an all-hours haven for crack users
and dealers.

May described the terrain where the gun battle broke out as "a very
dense area."

"The suspects," May said, "came up through the woods and the officers,
in prone position, turned and said to them, 'We're police officers,
move on.'"

The deputy chief said the suspects "confronted" and "challenged" the
officers after the officers identified themselves. He did not explain
exactly how the suspects "challenged" the officers.

When asked what became of the handgun that Long is said to have used,
May said that was not known. He did, however, say that "it's a
possibility that some of the gathering crowd," which formed shortly
after the shootout, did something with it.

"The investigation is ongoing, and there are some things we cannot
give you," May said.

The officers, meanwhile, are on administrative leave with pay, which
is routine in police-involved shootings. The department's Shooting
Review Board will convene later this month to go over the shootout's
specifics and rule whether use-of-deadly-force policies were followed.
The last Macon police shooting that resulted in a death was in July
1998.

One of the people questioned by police Friday identified herself as
Long's girlfriend and said he is the father of her two sons, a
5-year-old and a 2-year-old.

"I wish I knew what happened. ... He never had a gun," said
24-year-old Vanessa Good. "My son just asked was his daddy coming
over. I told him his daddy was dead."

Good said she and Long, natives of Rock Hill, S.C., came to Macon a
year ago and that she has been living with her mother. Good hadn't
seen Long for a couple of weeks.

She said he recently quit his job at a fast-food restaurant on Spring
Street. A manager at the eatery said Friday that Long "just didn't
show up" for work about a week ago.

Long and Good had plans to move back to South Carolina and get
married, said Good, adding that she is six months pregnant with Long's
child.

"We were gonna buy a trailer and raise our kids," she said. "He was a
good guy and a good father, too."

To contact Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397 or e-mail jkovac@macontel.com.

Posted by: Allan Wilkinson