LUDOWICI, GA – The FBI confirms a Deputy U.S. Marshal was killed Friday morning when the deputy was serving a fugitive warrant at the Spring Creek Mobile Home Park on Tibet Road. According to the AP, other law officers returned fire and killed the suspect.
The U.S. Marshals Service said 53-year-old Patrick Carothers, deputy commander of the agency’s Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, died after being shot twice as a team of officers tried to serve a warrant at a mobile home in rural Long County.
According to the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, Dontrell Montese Carter is responsible for shooting and killing US Marshal Patrick Carothers Friday.
Carter was involved in a domestic dispute that evolved into a shootout with officers in Sumter County, South Carolina before he escaped into a wooded area on September 18. The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office asked Florence and/or Myrtle Beach law enforcement to be on the lookout for Carter.
After the September incident, Carter was wanted on charges of attempted murder of police officers, domestic violence and illegally discharging a weapon.
Below is the statement from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office.
Sumter County Sheriff Anthony Dennis is offering his condolences to the US Marshal killed in a shootout with a suspect wanted out of Sumter County on Friday morning in Long County, Georgia.
The men and women of the US Marshals Service work very hard to keep all of us safe,” Dennis said. “Patrick Carothers was 53 years old and a father to five children. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”
FBI, GBI, and Long County officials remain on the scene.
Carothers served 26 years with the Marshals Service and had been deputy commander of the fugitive task force for more than a year.