The hunt for a fugitive accused of shooting at police in South Carolina turned deadly when law officers tracked the suspect to southeast Georgia, where an attempt to arrest him erupted in gunfire.
(FOX)- The brief shootout at a mobile home in rural Long County killed a deputy U.S. marshal as well as the man his team was trying to apprehend.
The U.S. Marshals Service said Patrick Carothers, deputy commander of the agency’s Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, died after being shot twice as the officers entered the mobile home.
“Pat is a hero,” David Harlow, deputy director of the Marshals Service, said in a statement Friday offering condolences to Carothers’ wife and five children. Carothers had served 26 years with the agency.
The slain suspect was identified as Dontrell Montese Carter, 25. He had been wanted in Sumter County, South Carolina, since Sept. 18 on charges of attempted murder of police officers, domestic violence and illegally discharging a weapon.
The agency said Carothers and his team had tracked Carter to a mobile home just outside Ludowici, about 55 miles southwest of Savannah. Carothers was shot as they were entering the home.
Law officers returned fire and shot Carter multiple times, the Marshals Service said. Both men were taken to area hospitals, where they were pronounced dead.
(Photo Credit: Sumter County Sheriff’s Office via AP and Fox News)