Police kill Greyhound bus passenger they say walked onto Atlanta freeway while armed with a knife

ATLANTA — A passenger on a Florida-bound Greyhound bus was shot and killed by police after running onto a major freeway in Atlanta while armed with a knife, authorities said.

The shooting happened shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday on Interstate 75 south of downtown Atlanta. Police said officers were initially responding to a call reporting a person stabbed on a Greyhound bus.

Officers made repeated attempts to disarm the man, but he continued to walk into the path of cars and trucks in the southbound lanes of the interstate, police said.

“What then played out was a protracted effort to de-escalate the situation,” Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said at a Thursday briefing. Officers used verbal commands and tried to also use stun guns and pepper spray, he said.

The man ignored orders to drop the knife, Schierbaum said. He then “moved towards officers aggressively,” police said in the statement. Five officers then opened fire, and the man was later pronounced dead at Grady Memorial Hospital, police said. He was identified by police only as a 39-year-old white man who had boarded the bus in Atlanta and had just gotten off the bus when officers encountered him.

Arriving officers found that a passenger on the bus had been stabbed in the hand but was able to continue on the Greyhound journey to Florida after officers had conducted interviews with passengers, Schierbaum said. Passengers also shared with police cellphone videos they had taken of the man, he said.

No officers were injured, nor were any drivers on the freeway, police said.

“This is never the outcome the Atlanta Police Department wants," Schierbaum said. “We want there to be safe and peaceful resolutions to all these encounters, and I think the actions of the officers from the time they were dispatched until weapons had to be discharged shows that this was not their desire either.”