RIVERDALE, GA (CBS ATLANTA) -
Clayton County police responded to 911 phone calls on Monday, where callers said a man living at a home in Riverdale was acting demented and setting fires in his front yard.
It happened at a home on Yellow Wood Court on Monday afternoon.
A witness told CBS Atlanta News that she watched the man hold a knife to his throat and then heard three gunshots. That witness, Berlin Strickland, said she then watched the man collapse as police opened fire.
"I saw the gentleman walking back and forth with the knife and the police was at the end of the driveway, and his family was down here at the end of the corner," Strickland said.
"Officers observed the suspect holding a knife to his throat acting irrationally and making threatening comments, while burning items in his yard," said Clayton County Police Department spokeswoman Officer Chanti Ashmore.
Police say the situation grew out of control and officers responded with force.
"Officers made several attempts to gain compliance to the suspect to drop the weapon with no results. The male suspect made threatening movements, verbal threats which led to the officers using force," Ashmore said.
Strickland said she saw police go around to the back of the house and then she heard one shot.
"I think he started trying to stab himself so they shot two more, he fell and they put him in the ambulance," she said.
Agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation joined the search for clues in the man's yard late Monday night.
Officials were withholding the identity of the man they shot. They didn't release his condition.
Copyright 2012 WGCL-TV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.
Scene of the shooting
