Prisoner shot to death after overpowering guard at hospital

<p>A state prisoner was shot to death Thursday after he overpowered a guard, took the guard's gun and attempted to escape the Medical College of Georgia Hospital, officials said.</p><p>The inmate, identified as Darius Magby, 32, had been taken to the hospital from Georgia State Prison in Reidsville for treatment for an unspecified reason.</p><p>Magby, who was serving a life sentence for convictions on armed robbery and drug charges, took the Department of Corrections officer's gun on the eighth floor. He ran down several flights of stairs to exit the building and then refused an order to stop before he was shot by a hospital security officer, the hospital said.</p><p>"After repeated attempts to get the prisoner to surrender, MCG police took necessary force and shot him," the hospital said in a statement. Correctional health care at MCG was suspended for two hours during an investigation by the Department of Corrections and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.</p><p>Scott Strange, who lives near Lake Oconee, said he and his wife, Desiree, witnessed the incident. Strange, who said his mother was having lung surgery, told The Augusta Chronicle that he saw a prisoner in white coveralls run and heard people yelling that the prisoner had taken a guard's gun.</p><p>The guard, who was not identified, was treated for minor injuries, GBI agent Gary Nicholson said.</p><p>The escape attempt was the latest violent incident involving prisoners in custody in Georgia.</p><p>On March 11, a defendant in a rape trial in Atlanta was accused of overpowering 51-year-old deputy Cynthia Hall at the Fulton County Courthouse, taking her gun and killing a judge and his court reporter inside the courtroom.</p><p>Police say Brian Nichols then killed a deputy outside the courthouse and, later in the day, shot and killed a U.S. Customs agent who was working on a house he was preparing to move into.</p><p>Earlier this week, a man facing burglary charges attacked a female Fulton County deputy sheriff in the same courthouse. The Fulton County Sheriff's Department said the deputy was trying to calm down the man after he lashed out at a courtroom employee, and as she behind him to physically subdue him, he tried to punch her.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1d09d0c)</p>

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