A press conference was held today regarding the deadly deputy-involved shooting which took place late Friday night at a Columbus hotel.

Muscogee County Sheriff Greg Countryman says the Special Operations Unit, along with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, were both looking for a known fugitive, Oscar Maxwell, who has several outstanding warrants with Lee County and was involved in several firearm thefts.

Officials with the unit received information Maxwell was staying at Baymont Inn and Suites on Whitesville Road. When officials arrived, they confirmed Maxwell was in fact staying there.

The unit’s surveillance team began to watch the hotel and observed Maxwell on the upper floor of the hotel. During their observation, they noticed Maxwell entering into his hotel room. At that time, their support units, who were staged close by, were called in for assistance. Support units arrived on the northwest side of the hotel when Maxwell exited his room and started walking toward Special Operations Unit members.

The members identified themselves and gave verbal commands to Maxwell for him to surrender. Maxwell went back into his hotel room and slammed the door shut.

Special Operations approached the room and as they opened the door of the room, they were met with a volley of gunfire from Maxwell, who was holding 2 weapons, one in each hand. Special Operations returned gunfire to neutralize Maxwell’s threat. “There was a brief pause where units were able to call for assistance and give verbal commands to Maxwell.”

Maxwell leveed a second volley of gunfire out of his room which struck parked vehicles, including a sheriff’s office vehicle and occupied rooms.

Special Operations returned fire until Maxwell stopped firing. The unit began to give verbal commands to make contact with Maxwell but those attempts went unanswered.

A wireless robot was deployed which observed Maxwell lying on the floor. Entry team safety entered the room and located him unresponsive and still holding an automatic weapon. In the room, was six to seven firearms, one of which was stolen, as well as several tasers, and one possible grenade.

Medical personnel, who were staging nearby, were called in and rendered aid. Muscogee County Coroner’s Office arrived and pronounced Maxwell dead at 10:59 PM.

Muscogee County Sheriff Greg Countryman made the following message: “The message I want to send loud and clear to those that think we will cower when they have the audacity to fire at one of our investigators or deputies we will not back down from you we will engage you and we will neutralize the threat. We want you to know that because we don’t take this to be funny, we are not going to sit on the sideline and run from you because you think that just because you fire a weapon we are going to run from it. We are going to engage you if you wage war with us. We will engage you and neutralize the threat.”

GBI agents remain investigating the incident.