FSP-Microcosm News-Global Community Report: 911 dispatchers were told Georgia gunman was off his medication

Thursday, August 22, 2013

911 dispatchers were told Georgia gunman was off his medication

(David Goldman/ Associated Press ) - Shanique Worthey, right, is embraced by her mother Daphne Morris, while waiting to be reunited with her son five-year-old son Skyler Worthey as students from Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy are picked up by loved ones in a Walmart parking lot after they were evacuated when a gunman entered the school, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013, in Decatur, Ga.

By Associated Press, Published: August 20 | Updated: Wednesday, August 21, 4:48 PM

LITHONIA, Ga. — A woman whose family once took in the suspect in an Atlanta-area school shooting said Wednesday that he was mentally ill but never violent in the past.Natasha Knotts told The Associated Press that Michael Brandon Hill lived with her and her husband for several months in his late teens. She says she served as a mother figure for Hill in after he started coming to the small church where she and her husband are pastors.

Two people who encountered a man accused of opening fire inside an Atlanta school said he told them he was off his medication.

Also on Wednesday, police gave more details about the previous day’s ordeal and what led up to it. Before going to the school, investigators say that Hill took a photo of himself with an AK 47-style rifle and packed up nearly 500 rounds of ammunition — enough to shoot more than half the school’s students.Police said Hill, 20, got the gun from an acquaintance, but it’s not clear if he stole it or had permission to take it.No one was injured, but the suspect exchanged gunfire with police who surrounded Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur. The school’s 870 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade were evacuated.“We have to make a reasonable assumption he was there to do harm to someone,” said DeKalb County Police Chief Cedric L. Alexander.Knotts said Hill called her sister Tuesday afternoon before the shooting and said he had a rifle but didn’t say what he was planning to do. She said she believes that Hill acted out as a plea for help.“This is something that’s totally out of his character. This is not him. This is not the Mike that I know. For anyone that knew Mike, this was a total devastation,” she said in an interview at her home in Lithonia.Though there is no blood or legal connection between them, Knotts said she considers Hill like a son.“He was part of our family,” Knotts said of the roughly six months that Hill stayed with them several years ago. Her family was aware that “he had a mental disorder” before he moved in, but she said he was loving and quiet and never displayed any anger or violent tendencies.
He didn’t work, didn’t seem to have any friends and hardly ever spoke about his family or his past, Knotts said. Hill told her that his birth mother was dead and that he didn’t know his father. He also has brothers.
She kept in touch after he moved out and said he’d recently been living with another couple who belonged to the church. Knotts last saw Hill about a month ago and he seemed fine.
Hill held one or two staff members in the front office captive for a time, the police chief said, making one of them call a local TV station. At some point, he fired into the floor of the school office. As officers swarmed the campus outside, he shot at them at least a half a dozen times with an assault rifle from inside the school and they returned fire, police said. Police came into the school office, and Hill surrendered.
Hill is charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, terroristic threats and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Police declined to discuss what he told them when he was questioned.

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