A Gwinnett County K9 officer and his human partner successfully tracked down and apprehended a lone gunman who began randomly shooting innocent civilians last April.
The dog, Nitro, his handler, Sergeant Brian Doan, and then-Corporal M. Forrester were named Officer of the Month on May 23 for heroically pursuing and catching a “violent and dangerous” individual, who posed a grave danger to the public.
Without waiting for a search team for help, they did what they had to do — their job.
On April 10, around 4 p.m., Sergeant Doan and Nitro responded to a call; shots were fired near an apartment complex on Pirkle Road where at least one man was randomly shot inside his vehicle.
“It was a very fast, rapidly evolving call,” Sergeant Doan told The Epoch Times. “We started setting up a perimeter, and then another officer said he had two more people at a different location who had been shot by the same suspect.”
The male shooter left the apartment and arrived at a townhome community where he broke in and shot, without killing, a married couple in their bedroom. Then he exited a backdoor, Sergeant Doan said.
From his position, he then saw the suspect cross Pirkle Road, leaving their established perimeter, and enter a small wooded area dividing the townhomes and the apartments.
“I challenged him, saying ‘Gwinnet Police, stop!’” the officer said. “The male continued running out of sight.”
Realizing the suspect posed an immediate danger to residents, Doan geared up to pursue, putting Nitro on a 30-foot leash, and convened with Sergeant Forrester before setting out for the woodline.
“He just ran, let’s go!” Doan told Forrester.
The sergeant gave Nitro the tracking command as they entered the wooded patch and the K9 caught the scent, which was traced to the backyard of a house barred by a chain-link fence. Nitro jumped the fence and circled near the house, indicating the suspect was hiding in a brown plastic storage container.
“I pulled Nitro back and gave verbal commands and the suspect opened up the box and surrendered,” said Sergeant Doan. They then apprehended him.
They later found the suspect’s discarded rifle in a trash bin.
While being named Officer of the Month, Corporal Forrester has since been promoted Sergeant Forrester.
Sergeant Doan told the newspaper his reason for pursuing the gunman without relying on backup, despite the danger he posed.
“He needed to be stopped, he was harming innocent civilians,” Doan said. “As long as I had lethal coverage on me, that’s all I cared about. … It’s one of those situations where you don’t really think about things; it’s more of, ‘It’s time to clock in and do our job.’
“Luckily, we were able to find him and nobody else got injured and we were able to take him into custody.”
He added, “This guy had just fired and shot several innocent people, so he was a direct threat to anybody that pretty much got in his way; so yeah, there was no option, there was no waiting, and we need to get this guy stopped, and we need to get him stopped now.”
