By Joe Johnson
An Athens-Clarke County police officer Monday morning fatally shot a woman who police said threatened him with a knife at a westside apartment complex.
The unidentified 54-year-old white female was the fifth person to be shot by Athens-Clarke police this year.
According to police, an officer responded shortly after 10 a.m. to a suspicious person call in the 100 block of Chalfont Drive
Dispatchers advised officers that the subject may be armed with a knife.
Upon the officer’s arrival the woman also indicated that she was also possibly in possession of a firearm.
During an afternoon press conference, Police Chief Cleveland Spruill indicated that the woman was believed to have been the person who had called 911 to bring officers to her home.
According to Spruill. The woman behaved aggressively from the moment police arrived.
As she approached an officer while holding a large knife, she ignored numerous commands to drop the knife, according to Spruill.”
“That individual did not com0ply with the officer’s directions and at one point that individual advanced toward the officer with the knife raised in a threatening manner and the officer fired shots which struck the individual,” Spruill said. “
Officers provided emergency first aid, but the woman later died at the hospital.
The knife was recovered but police said they did not find a gun.
The woman’s name was being withheld by police, pending notification of her next of kin.
The officer, whose name was not immediately released, was placed on paid administrative leave pending preliminary findings of the shooting’s investigation, which was being handled by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Spruill said that officer body camera footage would be made public at a later.
The incident marked the fifth time this year that an Athens-Clarke County police officer shot someone in the line of duty.
On Oct. 6, a police officer shot and seriously wounded a man who police said attacked him with a machete when the officer responded to a report of domestic violence at University Garden Apartments on Baxter Drive.
On July 1, officers fatally shot a man who was behaving irrationally prior to charging at officer with a knife at the entrance of River Club apartments off Macon Highway.
Another man was shot and killed during a police investigation on Hull Road in April. Police said they wanted to speak to the man as part of a peeping Tom complaint when the man pointed a shotgun at officers.
The fifth police shooting happened in March when a man was shot and killed as he approached officers while pointing a gun in a parking lot on West Lake Drive.
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