A man on trial for rape on Friday grabbed a deputy's gun and shot dead a judge and two other officials in an Atlanta courtroom before seizing a car at gunpoint to flee, witnesses and reports said. Police launched a huge manhunt in the Georgia city for Brian Nichols, 34, after the shooting. A large area of downtown Atlanta was cordoned off and schools were shut down. The 1.86-meter (6-foot-1), 95-kilo (210-pound) Nichols allegedly wrestled a gun from a sheriff's deputy in the courtroom, and shot Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes as well as a court reporter, witnesses said.
Local television reported that one of two deputies wounded in the shooting died in hospital.
"We heard some noise. It sounded like three or four shots. At the time, we thought it was just an engine backfiring," Chuck Cole, an attorney who was in an adjoining parking lot, told Fox5 television.
The state governor's top aide, Mark Taylor told Georgia senators of the incident. "It appears that Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes has lost his life, along with his court reporter," the lieutenant-governor said from the Senate floor.