One dead, three injured after shootout at Columbus pawn shop

One person was killed and three others were wounded in a shootout during an attempted robbery Wednesday at the Columbus Pawn Shop on Fort Benning Road, police said.

One individual was pronounced dead inside the pawnshop at 12:30 p.m, said Muscogee County Deputy Coroner Charles Newton. The body will be transported to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab in Decatur for an autopsy.

Police said a second person inside the 2241 Fort Benning Road pawnshop was wounded. A third was found wounded off Torch Hill Road, just west of the shop, and a fourth was found shot in a vacant lot about a block south of the business.

Police Maj. J.D. Hawk said the shooting was reported to the 911 emergency center at 12:05 p.m.

“Officers arrived on the scene, at which time it was determined that one individual is deceased. One other individual is shot in the arm, and two other individuals that fled the scene were also shot,” Hawk said. “At this time, we’re in the preliminary investigation, checking on the possibility of anybody else being involved in this, but at this time it appears to be a robbery in progress that went bad.”

The condition of those wounded was not immediately available. The identity of the deceased was withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Columbus Police Chief Ricky Boren said two people entered the pawnshop and started firing shots at employees, who fired back, prompting the suspects to flee.

Multiple marked and unmarked Columbus police vehicles were on the scene around 1 p.m. The north, side door of the building on the northwest corner of Torch Hill Road and Fort Benning Road appeared to be off its hinges.

Officers scouring the surrounding area for evidence found one of the wounded suspects in a treeline at the edge of the vacant lot just south of 2303 Fort Benning Road, and directed an ambulance to pick him up. The suspect was wailing in pain.

Check back with the Ledger-Enquirer for more on this developing story.

This story was originally published December 20, 2017 at 1:45 PM with the headline "One dead, three injured after shootout at Columbus pawn shop."