Atlanta police release part of 911 call from fatal hospital shooting: ‘Gunshots in the hall!’

The chaos of the deadly shooting at an Atlanta hospital is evident in a portion of the inside 911 call released by police on Friday.

Deion Patterson, 24, who served with the Coast Guard for five years, was attending an appointment Wednesday morning at Northside Medical Midtown to get meds for anxiety with his mother, when he “became enraged” in the lobby and opened fire.

The murdered woman has been identified as 39-year-old Amy St. Pierre, an employee of the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionwith four other women – ages 71, 56, 39 and 26 – all injured.

In the 88 seconds of the 911 call released by the Atlanta Police Department, a hospital employee can be heard exclaiming that “gunshots in the hall!”

“There were several shots we heard,” the caller said. “They ran for cover. We have a lot of employees and patients in the building.’

The caller also asks a doctor if they saw anyone in a nearby elevator after the shooting, which happened just after noon.

The Doctor is then heard to be asked if they can describe a person, but the Doctor replies that he ‘took cover’.

St. Pierre, a public health consultant, died after Deion Patterson, 24, reportedly opened fire at Northside Hospital Medical Midtown on Wednesday, where his mother had taken him for an appointment.

The CDC confirmed St. Pierre’s death in a statement that read, “CDC is deeply saddened by the unexpected loss of a colleague who was killed today in the Midtown Atlanta shooting. Our hearts are with her family, friends and colleagues as they remember and mourn this tragic loss.”

Patterson, whose mugshot has now been released, is believed to have shot four other women – aged 25, 39, 56 and 71.

Hospital officials confirmed that three of the injured underwent surgery – one was shot in the arm, one in the face and a third in the abdomen.

Three of the victims were in critical condition at nearby Grady Memorial Hospital.

Patterson fled on foot and became the subject of an hour-long manhunt throughout the city.

He was captured “without incident” at around 8 p.m. at an apartment complex in suburban Cobb County.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens expressed relief that Patterson has been taken into custody alive so he can be prosecuted.

“At this point, we have successfully ended a traumatic day,” Dickens said Wednesday night.

“I hope the city, the region, is reassured that he is in custody, but I also hope that we remain vigilant to keep looking to a future where individuals who shouldn’t own a gun won’t have one.” and also that individuals are being brought to justice, and also that we are dealing with things like mental health or easy access to guns,” he added.

Charles Hampton Jr., the deputy of the Atlanta Police Department, did not elaborate on details of the investigation or a possible motivation for the frenzy.

“Why he did what he did, all that is still under investigation,” he said.

The suspect’s mother, Minyone Patterson, is a nurse and accompanied her son to his medical appointment on Wednesday.

She told the Associated Press that her son, a former Coast Guardsman, had “some mental instability” from medication he had received from the Veterans Affairs health system, which he started on Friday.

Minyone said he had wanted an Ativan prescription to treat anxiety and depression, but the VA wouldn’t give it to him, citing its addictive quality.

She claimed that her son would have taken the correct dosage of the medication because “he listened to me in every possible way.”

She continued crying, “Those families, those families. They hurt because they wouldn’t give my son his damn Ativan. Those families lost their loved ones because he had a mental breakdown because they wouldn’t listen to me.”

The Coast Guard has confirmed that Patterson joined them in 2018, before being discharged from active duty in January 2023. It is unclear why he was fired.

“Our condolences go out to the victims and their families. The Coast Guard Investigative Service is working closely with the Atlanta Police Department and local authorities in the investigation,” a statement said.

“Mr. Patterson joined the Coast Guard in July 2018 and last served as a second class electrician’s mate.”

Patterson has run afoul of the law on several occasions, including in 2017 when he was charged with drunk driving, leaving the scene of an accident and a number of other traffic violations.

In 2015 he was arrested on charges of possession of marijuana and in 2020 he was charged again for several traffic violations.