Holly MatkinStockbridge, GA – The Henry County Police Department has released terrifying bodycam footage that captured the moment that a gunman shot two officers from inside his home on Thursday (video below).
Henry County Police Officer Keegan Merritt and Officer Taylor Webb responded to the Eagle Court residence at approximately 11 a.m., after they received a report of a domestic disturbance.
Anetria White later told WGCL that she called police after she found her sister, Sandra White, “dead in the garage.”
When the officers arrived at the residence, they spotted an unresponsive woman in the garage, bodycam footage showed.
“Female’s visible inside, unresponsive,” Officer Webb confirmed over his radio. “We’re about to force entry.”
He then kicked in the door and entered the home, but was immediately met by gunfire.
He hit the ground, dropping his bodycam inside the home.
As additional officers raced to the front door, the gunman fired through a window, nearly striking a second officer.
Officer Merritt, who took aim at the house from behind a tree, was struck in the hand by gunfire.
Bodycam footage showed him scrambling away backwards, as he crawled on the ground.
“I’m hit. I’m hit,” he said.
The bodycam dropped inside the residence recorded the shooter, later identified as 47-year-old Anthony Bailey, as he warned police to stay out of his house.
“Don’t come in here,” he said. “I got a lotta shots! I got a hostage…I got 30-round clips in here!”
An officer told Bailey to come out of the house, but he refused.
Police then asked the gunman where the wounded officer was located.
“He downstairs somewhere,” Bailey replied. “I don’t know. I hit him and he moved. I shot him and he moved.”
“I got a lotta shots!” he reminded the officers.
Despite having been shot in the chest and hip, Officer Webb was able to get himself to the garage, where he discovered Sandra’s body, WXIA reported.
His fellow officers kicked a hole in the closed overhead garage door, and helped him escape to safety.
Both veteran officers were transported to Grady Memorial Hospital in serious condition. Their wounds were not believed to be life-threatening.
Bailey barricaded himself inside the residence with his 39-year-old pregnant girlfriend, Sandra, and her 16-year-old son, Arkeyvion, WSB reported.
The Georgia State Patrol SWAT team responded to the scene, but Bailey refused to give them any assurances that the hostages were unharmed.
“We felt [the suspect] was being dishonest,” Henry County Police Captain Joey Smith said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We had no contact with the 16-year-old, or any idea that the female was OK.”
“It’s very dangerous. You got a potentially-armed suspect, he’s fired at two officers, we can’t get very close to the house,” Captain Smith said on Thursday afternoon, according to WAGA.
“We do not want to make a dynamic entry into the home,” he explained, according to ABC News. “With communication with the individual, at least he’s talking – that’s helpful. We’re going to wait as long as we can.”
At one point, the gunman told police he would release Arkeyvion.
“He said he would, and we’re just standing by waiting,” Capt. Smith said at the time, according to WSB.
But the suspect never followed through with his promise to release the boy.
At approximately 9 p.m., police fired tear gas into the residence, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“It was like a bomb went off at first, but now it’s just shooting — a lot of shooting,” neighbor Dwight Taylor said at the time.
The series of tear gas deployments sounded like gunfire, police said.
SWAT tried to enter the home again just before 11 p.m., but were turned away by the suspect’s gunfire.
The officers were not wounded during the attempt, and did not return fire.
Bailey had no further contact with police.
After a long period of silence from the gunman, the SWAT team entered the Eagle Court residence at approximately 3 a.m.
Inside, they discovered the bodies of Arkeyvion, Sandra, and Bailey.
“Our gunman, it appears, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Capt. Smith said. “That was confirmed by the [Georgia State Patrol] SWAT entry team.”
Sandra, a registered nurse, was 19 days away from her pregnancy’s anticipated due date, her sister told WGCL.
She planned to name her little boy Antonio, Anetria said.
She said she recently spoke with Bailey about hosting a baby shower for her sister on Saturday.
“He was doing the cooking,” Anetria told WGCL.
She said that Sandra and Bailey had been together for about five years and that he was the father of the baby she was carrying, but that she was not happy.
“Maybe he just snapped. I don’t know,” she said.
Sandra served him with an eviction notice in March, but he “just wouldn’t leave,” Anetria explained.
“He moved and stayed in the garage,” she continued. “After that, somehow, he just worked his way back in.”
Anetria was devastated by the final outcome of the standoff.
“I don’t know what to say. If you come over to your sister’s house and you see her dead in the garage and then you wait from 11 o’clock in the morning until now you find out all three of them are gone,” she told WGCL through tears.
They had been living in the Eagle Ridge subdivision for about six months, neighbor Russell Blanding told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Officer Merritt and Officer Webb are both recovering in the hospital, WAGA reported.
Capt. Smith said that it appears that Officer Webb was likely saved by his ballistic vest.
“Very likely, I know it was in the upper torso area… and it most likely did strike the vest, I just can’t confirm it,” he told reporters.
Rick Corssey said he is the father-in-law of one of the wounded officers.
“Army veteran, two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he’s been on the force for a while. It’s just a terrible tragedy,” Corssey told WAGA.
He thanked the community for its support, and praised the Clayton County Police Department for escorting him and his wife to the hospital immediately after the shooting.
You can watch bodycam footage of the officers’ encounter with Bailey in the video below: