HIJACKED: Gunman Seizes Bus As He SPEEDS Through Downtown Atlanta

Pop quiz.

There’s a fight on the bus.

Someone’s been shot.

Now the gunman’s hijacked the bus full of passengers and going on a wild ride downtown.

If you stop the bus, the gunman could turn on the passengers and harm them.

If you don’t stop the bus, they’ll most likely get in a collision.

What do you do?

That may sound like a scene from the 1994 film Speed, but it’s what occurred Tuesday in Atlanta.

But let’s start at the beginning.

The story starts at a nearby mall, around 2:00 p.m.

One person was killed during a shootout.

A Joseph Grier was interviewed about the shooting, stating what he witnessed.

Time goes by.

As the Police Chief Darin Schierbaum was finishing up a briefing on the shooting spree—bam!

A 911 call comes in at 4:30 p.m.

Someone hijacked a bus.

You see, while the Chief was going over the shooting, a Transit bus was picking up passengers in downtown Atlanta.

One of those passengers was Joseph Grier.

Wasn’t long before he got in an argument with a fellow passenger.

Things escalated quick.

The passenger had a gun.

Grier wrestled the gun away from the guy, started waving it around, even shooting him.

🚨🇺🇸UPDATE: NEW VIDEO SHOWS CHASE, ARREST OF SUSPECT AFTER ATLANTA BUS INCIDENT

New footage has emerged capturing the pursuit and arrest of a suspect who allegedly fled from police in a Gwinnett County Transit bus on Tuesday afternoon.

The incident began when officers responded… https://t.co/vbuzQIu4Sn pic.twitter.com/OLeR0WDoj5

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 11, 2024

Gunman hijacks loaded city bus near Atlanta.pic.twitter.com/CNiJezj5wb

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) June 12, 2024

Right before the wild bus ride, the hijacker was interviewed:

Gwinnett bus hijacker Joseph Grier getting interviewed after the mall shooting by NBC 11 Alive shortly before he lost his mind and rose hell up 85North from Downtown Atlanta to Jimmy Carter Blvd pic.twitter.com/5jb48KKPIf

— STREETWORK85NAWF BY DRE HOVA 💫 (@Streetwork85N) June 12, 2024

Local news, Rough Draft Atlanta reports:

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) added new insight into the incident in a media release on Wednesday.

The preliminary information indicates on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, at about 4:20 p.m., a Gwinnett County Transit bus picked up passengers in downtown Atlanta. Among the passengers that boarded the bus was Grier. Grier was engaging with passengers on the bus and got into an argument with a male passenger. Grier got into a fight with the male passenger, and the passenger pulled out a gun. Grier took the gun from the passenger and began threatening passengers with it. Grier then shot the passenger and ordered the bus driver to flee the scene while threatening passengers with the gun.

Numerous law enforcement agencies began pursuing the bus as it traveled north into Gwinnett County and then traveled east into DeKalb County. During the pursuit, the bus hit several police vehicles. The bus’s tires were flattened during the pursuit, but the bus continued to flee. A Georgia State Patrol Trooper then fired his patrol rifle into the engine compartment of the bus in order to cause the bus to malfunction and stop running.

The pursuit ended on Hugh Howell Road in Stone Mountain. At that time, Grier was taken into custody without further incident. The passenger shot by Grier was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead. The bus driver was also taken to a local hospital for treatment. The name of the victim that died is being withheld pending notification of next of kin by Atlanta PD and the Fulton County M.E.’s Office.

At approximately 4:35 p.m., Atlanta Police officers responded to a report of gunfire on a bus and a possible hostage situation near 45 Ivan Allen Jr. Blvd. NE in Downtown Atlanta.

NBC News reports:

One person was killed and a suspect was arrested after a gunman hijacked a suburban bus in Atlanta and led police on a chase Tuesday, in the second of two major crimes that rocked the city one after the other, officials said.

Police were just wrapping up a briefing after three people and a gunman were shot at a downtown mall food court when a 911 call of an emergency on a bus came in around 4:30 p.m., Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said.

A responding officer confronted the gunman, who “forced the bus driver to drive off,” Schierbaum said.

Seventeen people were on the Gwinnett County Transit bus, including the driver, as police chased it through three jurisdictions in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties before a large BearCat police vehicle disabled and trapped it, officials said. The passengers then got off.

The first call about gunfire and hostages on the bus was near 45 Ivan Allen Jr. Blvd. in Atlanta, and the bus came to a final stop near 5107 Hugh Howell Road in Stone Mountain in DeKalb County, police said — a distance of around 20 miles.

ADVERTISEMENT

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens praised 911 call center officials and police as they were “trying to navigate what was a gunman with a gun to the head of a bus driver, saying, ‘Don’t stop this bus or else worse will happen.'”

“I mean, this seems like the movies,” Dickens said, adding that but for law enforcement’s actions, it could have been worse.

Police did not identify the dead person pending notification of next of kin. The person was found shot as officers cleared the bus and died at a hospital, police said.

Dickens said the circumstances of how the person was killed were not fully known. No other injuries were reported on the bus, police said.

Arrested was Joseph Grier, 39, most recently of Stone Mountain, a city east of Atlanta, police said.

“We don’t know yet” why he hijacked the bus, Schierbaum said. He said Grier is a convicted felon who has been arrested 19 times.

Atlanta police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are investigating, police said.

It was not immediately clear whether Grier had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

During the chase, one person called 911, but the call ended, police said. A relative of a person on the bus called police and reported getting text messages from that passenger, and then someone on the bus called 911, and the line was left open, police said.

Schierbaum said information was continually fed to Atlanta police, as well as police in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties, and to the Georgia State Patrol.

“You saw the collective effort and dedication of law enforcement working today to save lives, to rescue hostages, to make sure this ended,” Schierbaum said.

Earlier in the day at the Peachtree Center Mall food court in downtown Atlanta, a gunman shot three people before he was shot and wounded by a police officer, officials said.

That shooting happened around 2:15 p.m., a little more than two hours before the 911 call about the bus came in.

🚨🇺🇸1 DEAD AFTER GEORGIA BUS HIJACK

One person was fatally shot in connection with a bus hijacking that prompted a police chase through two Georgia counties.

The suspect held the bus driver at gunpoint during the hijacking with 16 passengers on the bus at the time.

Source:… https://t.co/05qdQsei3o pic.twitter.com/mgyS2ZFV44

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 12, 2024