Police: Deadly pursuit, crash likely linked to deadly shooting

ATLANTA (FOX 5 Atlanta) - What began as a fatal shooting Monday morning at Dunwoody apartment complex ended in a police chase and deadly crash in Clayton County later that day.

The shooting happened just before 6 a.m. Monday at the Arrive Perimeter Apartments off Ashford Dunwoody Road and near Perimeter Mall. Dunwoody Police officers found 45-year-old James Curtis Jones dead with gunshot wounds to his chest.

"We don't have a lot of crime in this area, especially violent crime, this is the first shooting we've had in the city in quite a while," Sgt. Robert Parsons, Dunwoody Police Department.

The investigation continued throughout the morning with police gathering evidence from the garage where the shooting took place. Then around 11 a.m., there was word on a police pursuit with a crash in Clayton County.

"It was pretty much an instant impact [snaps] it was done," said William Roberts who lives just feet away from where the crash took place.

Roberts said a speeding car collided with a dump truck. He captured the aftermath on his cell phone.

"The police were coming in, they had their weapons drawn, so I took my child back away from everything," said Roberts.

Police said the vehicle was driven by 42-year-old Ellenwood resident Roy McClendon-Thompson, who investigators called the prime suspect in the shooting at the Dunwoody apartment complex earlier in the day.

Several agencies, including the Georgia State Patrol, Dunwoody Police, and DeKalb County Police, are working to make sense of the series of events.