Dunwoody police say they were forced to shoot and kill an erratic driver who crashed into several cars near Perimeter Mall.

It happened at about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday along Ashford-Dunwoody Road.

The episode actually started around in the parking lot of the Dunwoody Police Department. Officers saw the wild driver and followed him into the parking lot of an Exxon gas station where he hit several cars.

“I tried to get out of the way the best I could, but he side swiped me,” one of the victims told Channel 2 Action News.

“I was very afraid, very afraid,” said another witness.

The suspect left the gas station and headed toward Perimeter Mall. But before he got there, the suspect drove straight for a police officer who was directing traffic. The officer pulled his gun and fired once through the windshield. The driver was shot in the torso.

The driver stopped and at apartment complex and was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital where he later died.

The entire ordeal lasted “only a couple of minutes,” Dunwoody police officer Tim Fetch told News/Talk WSB.

Fetch says the suspect was driving for less than a mile before he was shot and he didn’t have the time or space to go very fast.

The driver’s name has not been released.

Nobody else was injured, Fetch said.