Deadly officer-involved shooting in Rabun County

CLAYTON, Ga. - The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was asked to come to the city of Clayton in Rabun County Thursday morning to investigate an officer-involved shooting following a chase. A Clayton police officer shot and killed a man who investigators said slashed at the officer with a knife

The chase began along Highway 441. An officer tried to pull a car over for doing 68 in a 45. That driver took off turned down a side street, blew through an intersection and crashed. It was after the crash that the suspect charged the officer.

According to police after the crash, the driver became incredibly violent.

At one point, he was able to kick the back window out of the vehicle, climb onto the roof with a knife and dive at the officer on the ground. Officer is continually giving him verbal commands, ‘stop or I’ll shoot,’ and the suspect says ‘I don’t care’ at one point, continues at the officer in a slashing motion, stabbing motion, within less than a foot and the officer was forced to shoot. And unfortunately, the suspect was deceased at the scene,” Chief Andy Strait, Clayton Police.

The chief said his officer, a Marine veteran, then performed CPR on the victim, but the victim didn't survive.

“Our thoughts and prayers are for everyone involved in this situation. It truly a very sad situation,” the chief said.

The crashes happened Mountain View Health and Rehab’s driveway and immediately the phones started flying off the hook there.

"And we just tried to calm everybody that it wasn't anything affected here, that it wasn't anybody coming here to do anything," said administrator Shari Jordan. "We actually put paper in front of the doors because like I said it was a crime scene and we didn't need to be looking, we didn't need to be involved, nobody needed to see anything. And we didn't want to interfere.”

Clayton Police called in GBI to investigate

"We always want an outside source. And the GBI came in, of course, did our investigation for us. And they’re the lead investigation [sic] on this,” the chief said.

Police have dash cam of the entire incident and the chief said it will show everything from the chase to the crash to the man leaping at the officer with the knife, and just how close the man with the knife got to the officer before the first shot was fired. The video also shows the officer performing CPR, telling the man who just tried to kill him to had on.