UPDATE: The GBI identified the suspect as Brandon Anthony Vitier and the trooper who shot him as Joe Geddie.
According to a release, Vitier led Geddie on a chase. When it ended, he allegedly pointed a handgun out the window. Geddie then opened fire, hitting Vitier several times.
Vitier, 31, of Hendersonville, Tennessee, is in critical condition, according to the GBI.
A Lookout Mountain woman sued Geddie last year, claiming he used excessive force when he pulled her to the ground to arrest her. But a U.S. District Court judge dismissed the case.
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ORIGINAL STORY: The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is responding to a report of a man shot by a trooper in Trenton Thursday afternoon.
GBI Special Agent in Charge Greg Ramey said his office was called out to the scene of the shooting around 4 p.m. today. The investigation is just beginning.
Alex Case, the emergency 911 director in Dade County, said reports to his office indicated that a suspect led a Georgia State Patrol trooper on a chase down Interstate 59. The suspect supposedly exited at Trenton and drove west on State Route 136. The chase continued up Sand Mountain.
At a sharp switchback, next to Bethune's Garden Center, Case said the chase ended. The trooper then shot the man.
Case said the stormy weather prevented a helicopter from rushing the suspect to Erlanger Health Center. Instead, he said, paramedics rushed the man away in an ambulance.
Dade County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Chad Payne, a spokesman for the department, confirmed Case's preliminary account.
This is the second police chase that ended in a shooting in northwest Georgia in about two weeks. On Aug. 22, two suspects fled after allegedly shoplifting from a Kohl's in Cleveland, Tennessee. The chase stretched down Interstate 75 into Dalton, where officers intentionally crashed into the suspects' vehicle (which was also reported stolen). Officers shot Clinique Jashauna Jackson, who the GBI says was armed with two handguns.
On Aug. 7, a woman fleeing police in Alabama led a police chase into Trenton, Georgia. According to the Dade County Sheriff's Office, Lora Leanne Wooten sped east on U.S. Highway 11, toward the county's main square. On the way, Maj. Tommy Bradford lay spike strips. But Wooten swerved away from the trap and hit Bradford, slicing his left leg off above the knee. She later crashed into a pole in town, where police surrounded her.