Death by Cop 2021-2025
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Dalton Sears
Age : 30
Gender : Male
Race : White
Date : 08/07/2025
Location : Dollar General parking lot, West Coffee Street
City : Hazlehurst
County : Jeff Davis
State : Georgia
Agency : Jeff Davis County Sheriff's Office; Georgia State Patrol; Hazlehurst Police Department
Officer(s) :Trooper Daniel Ivey, Deputy Chace McLendon, Officer Branon Wyatt, Officer Sylvester Brown, Sheriff Preston Bohannon
Cause of Death : Suicide
Event : Suicide under police duress
OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :
On 08/07/2025, law enforcement officers from the Jeff Davis County Sheriff's Office, Georgia State Patrol, and Hazlehurst Police Department located Dalton Sears, 30, in the parking lot of a Dollar General store to arrest him on an active probation violation warrant. Sears entered the back seat of a black Toyota 4Runner armed with a large knife and stated that he was not going to jail. According to incident reports, he told officers he intended to either cut his own throat or die by "suicide by cop."
Officers established a perimeter around the vehicle and negotiated with Sears for more than an hour. During the standoff, Trooper Daniel Ivey communicated with Sears and eventually persuaded him to surrender the knife. As Sears began handing the knife toward the trooper, Sheriff Preston Bohannon ordered deputies to end the standoff immediately. Deputies rushed the vehicle and deployed Tasers. When Sears saw the deputies moving in, he plunged the knife into his own neck. Deputies attempted to use their Tasers, but the probes instead struck Trooper Ivey and a Hazlehurst police officer.
Emergency medical personnel transported Sears to Jeff Davis Hospital with a severe neck wound. He survived the injury, remained hospitalized for several days, and was later released to the Jeff Davis County Jail, where he was booked on the outstanding probation violation warrant.
Body-camera video and incident reports were later released through open records requests by DouglasNow. The reports documented Sears's repeated statements that he intended to kill himself or force officers to kill him, as well as the sequence of events leading to his self-inflicted injury during the attempted arrest.
