A man says he could have died when a car deputies were chasing crashed into him and bullets started flying.
“(I) heard a boom and then I hear a gunshots. ‘Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow,’” Ricky Redding told Channel 2’s Tom Jones.
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Deputies say that “boom” was a black Jeep they were chasing in two counties that crashed into Redding’s Honda Accord on Tara Boulevard and Winding Way Lane around 7 p.m. Monday.
“The only thing I could do was just lay down in my car and pray that hopefully I’m not hit by a bullet,” he said Tuesday.
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The GBI says the driver of the Jeep and his passenger, Maiya Gulley, sped off after a Fayette County deputy stopped them, believing they were in a stolen car. Deputies shared video they say shows the pair driving recklessly and firing shots at them.
“Shots fired. Shots fired,” you hear a deputy say.
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The chase went into Clayton, back to Fayette, then back to Clayton where the Jeep crashed into Redding and another car. The suspect’s car was pinned against Redding’s.
Deputies say the driver got out and fired at them as he ran away. Redding says it was frightening: “I could just see my life before me.”
Deputies shot and wounded the driver.
Jones watched Gulley go before a judge for her first appearance hearing.
“The defendant shot an additional four times at Deputy Allen,” said Clayton County Magistrate Court Judge Latrevia Kates-Johnson, reading the warrant surrounding Gulley’s arrest.
Gulley heard she faces charges of aggravated assault on an officer, obstruction, firearm discharge, party to a crime, possession of a weapon and reckless conduct. The judge denied bond.
Gulley denied firing at anyone. But still, she apologized.
“I also want to apologize to the officers that had to be in the pursuit. I know that was wrong. I never shot a gun at them,” she said.
Redding, a former sheriff’s deputy, says he had just picked up a delicious meal and was headed home to eat. He says almost didn’t make it.
“The last supper. I’m glad it wasn’t,” he said.
The GBI was called in to investigate. It says it is still trying to identify the driver who is recovering in Grady Hospital.
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