Man accused of shooting pregnant girlfriend captured in Atlanta search

Riverdale police say Jerell Clark was captured in Atlanta after a multi-agency search that turned a domestic-violence shooting case into a live manhunt. Clark was booked into the Clayton County jail just before 4:45 p.m. on July 1, 2026, ending a search that had stretched across local agencies and into Atlanta.

The case began on Taylor Road in Riverdale, where officers responded just before 7 a.m. on June 20, 2026, to the Brooks Crossing Apartments. Riverdale police chief Randall Norman said the pregnant woman and her adult son ran from the home as officers arrived, and the woman told police that Clark, her live-in boyfriend and the father of her unborn child, had shot her. Norman said she was hit in the neck and shoulder.

During the manhunt, police warned that Clark should be considered armed and dangerous. Officers used tactical teams and drones and evacuated nearby residents after fearing he might be barricaded inside the residence. Riverdale police later credited the Atlanta Police Department and other agencies for helping close the search, but did not say exactly how Clark was found in Atlanta.

The charges tied to the case reflected the gravity of the allegations. Court records and earlier reporting said Clark faced warrants that included aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, battery against a pregnant female, reckless conduct and cruelty to children. The legal posture put the case squarely in the category of a violent domestic assault, with the added concern of harm to an unborn child.

Later reporting said the woman was hospitalized in stable condition and that her unborn child was expected to survive. That detail narrowed one of the case’s central questions, even as prosecutors and investigators still have to sort through the evidence behind the shooting itself. Police have not publicly detailed the full sequence that led from the Taylor Road scene to Clark’s arrest in Atlanta.

The Riverdale case came less than a week after the fatal shooting of pregnant Decatur resident Shakiya Pridgen and her unborn child, a comparison that sharpened the attention on pregnancy-related violence across metro Atlanta. For Clark, the arrest ended the search; for investigators, the case now shifts to charging decisions, court records and the next round of hearings in Clayton County.