UPDATE: The man who led law enforcement in Whitfield County on a chase after he shot at an officer in Calhoun at Buc-ee’s on Thursday was wanted in connection to a homicide in Tennessee.
As the Gordon Gazette reported, the incident began early Thursday morning, April 17, around 4 a.m. when the man, identified as Robert Smith, held a female friend and her child at gunpoint in the Atlanta area and demanded she drive him to Nashville. For reasons unknown, they stopped at the Buc-ee’s in Calhoun, off of Exit 310 at Union Grove Road. The woman and the child were able to escape the man and went into the restroom at Buc-ee’s, where they requested an employee to call 911.
An officer with the Calhoun Police Department arrived on scene, and Smith began running around the outside of the building, leading the officer on a foot chase. At one point, the man turned around and shot at the officer, but missed. The man then found a running vehicle, brandished a gun and made the driver get out of the vehicle, stole the car and fled on I-75 North.
A BOLO was put out on the vehicle and man, and Whitfield County Sheriff’s Deputies came in contact with him, with a pursuit following. According to the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were able to locate the vehicle on Chattanooga Road near exit 336 and initiated their emergency lights and sirens. Smith failed to stop and a pursuit began. During the pursuit, Smith fired a weapon several times at Whitfield County Deputies from the vehicle. Whitfield County Deputies did not return fire but continued the pursuit of the vehicle. This pursuit lasted approximately three (3) miles before Smith lost control of the vehicle and crashed close to mile marker 339. When deputies finally approached the vehicle, Smith was discovered to have a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who is assisting with the investigation, released a statement saying their preliminary information indicated that Smith was wanted for aggravated assault out of Nashville, Tenn. On Wednesday, April 16, 2025, Smith drove to Georgia and abandoned his car at a location in metro Atlanta before attempting to head back north to Nashville.
According to 11Alive out of Atlanta, Smith was initially wanted on eight counts of aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated stalking, domestic assault, harassment and vandalism. In a separate investigation in Nashville, police there linked Smith to the homicide of a 23-year-old woman who was found shot in the head on Friday, April 11, in Putnam County, Tenn. Family had reported the woman, Cassidy Jackson, missing before her death, and Nashville police reported that her car was detected by a license plate reader in Atlanta earlier this week. It’s unclear whether Jackson’s car was the one abandoned by Smith.
The GBI said that Smith was pronounced dead on the scene in Whitfield County on Thursday, and that his body was taken to the GBI Medical Examiner’s Office where an autopsy will be performed.
No officers fired any shots during the incident.
