Atlanta armed bus hijacking suspect spoke to local media at shooting scene hours earlier

The man charged with murder and kidnapping after a bus hijacking in Atlanta on Tuesday was interviewed by local media after witnessing a shooting hours earlier.

Joseph Grier, 39, spoke to Atlanta’s NBC affiliate WXIA at the scene of a shooting at Peachtree Center Mall Tuesday afternoon, where a gunman shot three people before being wounded shot by a police officer.

Grier, wearing a gray shirt, said he saw the suspect confront someone before shots rang out.

“So I’m going outside of this,” Grier said, pointing to the mall. “So I see the shooter, I guess, you know what I’m saying.”

“He ran away…and I guess I don’t know if he pulled out a gun or what he did.” I was scared because I don’t have a gun, I can’t have one,” Grier said.

In the interview, Grier appeared to ramble and told reporters that he suffered from bipolar disorder, had been off his medication for two weeks and was going through a manic episode. He also said he was armed with knives and had previously been imprisoned.

“Right now I’m in an extreme mode,” he told reporters.

He was arrested hours later, wearing the same shirt in his photo, and is accused of hijacking a Gwinnett County Transit bus in Atlanta that had 17 people on board, including the driver, officials said.

Grier boarded the bus at 4:20 p.m. and got into an argument with a passenger that escalated into a fight, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

The passenger then pulled out a gun, which Grier took and began threatening passengers with it, officials said. He allegedly shot the passenger and ordered the bus driver to flee the scene, the GBI said.

A law enforcement pursuit was initiated as the bus entered Gwinnett County and then east into DeKalb County. During the pursuit, the bus crashed into several police vehicles and its tires were slashed.

Ultimately, a Georgia State Patrol trooper fired his patrol rifle into the engine compartment of the bus, causing it to malfunction and stop operating, the GBI said.

The pursuit ended on Hugh Howell Road in Stone Mountain and Grier was arrested without further incident.

The bus passenger who was shot was transported to a local hospital and died. He was identified Wednesday by Atlanta police as 58-year-old Earnest Byrd Jr.

The bus driver was also transported to a local hospital for treatment. No other injuries were reported, Atlanta police said.

Grier, of Stone Mountain, was booked into the Fulton County Jail Wednesday morning on 14 counts of kidnapping, 14 counts of aggravated assault, one count of murder, one count of hijacking a vehicle motor, one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted person. felon, and one count of possession of a knife or firearm during the commission of a certain crime, police said.

It was not immediately known whether he has an attorney.

Atlanta police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are investigating.

Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said during a news conference Tuesday that “we don’t know yet” why Grier hijacked the bus.

He described Grier as a criminal arrested 19 times.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens likened the chase to something “like the movies,” adding: “I think mental health is going to play a role in all of this, but you’re talking about too many guns in hands of individuals who should not have weapons.

Felicia Kinsey, Bryrd’s fiancee, told NBC News on Wednesday that Byrd was “the most incredible man I’ve ever known.”

She said she had his location on her phone and spent Tuesday afternoon watching his location go around in circles during the bus hijacking. She tried to call him, in vain.

Kinsey remembered Byrd as being a “big brother” to everyone.

“I just know he stood up to that man on the bus,” she said.

She said she and Byrd grew up next to each other in North Carolina and moved to Atlanta because Kinsey wanted to live there. Kinsey said Byrd had no family in the area and his funeral would be in New York.