Police searching for teen who fired shots through traffic at man on busy Atlanta road

ATLANTA (FOX 5 Atlanta) - A man runs for his life across a busy Atlanta street as bullets fly past him. He was trying to escape a would-be robber. Atlanta Police are trying to track down that gunman, who they say is just a teenager. 

Police say the crook tried to rob another man as the man approached his car outside a Shell station on Campbellton Road. The man, who did not want to be identified, says the gunman snuck up behind him, and he had a gun. He says he tried to knock the weapon out of the gunman's hand and ran.  He says he knew he had to get the gunman away from his car because his pregnant girlfriend was inside.

"I got a newborn on the way in March, she was in the car, he had a gun.  All I knew was to get away from the car," he said.

He took off running across Campbellton Road in Southwest Atlanta. He says the gunman was firing shots after him. 

"I was racing across, I fell smack in the middle of Campbellton Road. Probably if I didn't fall, that bullet would have hit me," he said. 

He ran to a food truck in the parking lot of the County Line Bottle Shop to get help. The gunman got away through the woods behind one of the businesses. 

Atlanta Police found surveillance video of the gunman who had walked into the liquor store just moments before the attempted robbery.  Officers say he's a teenager and needs to be caught.  They say he put lives in jeopardy as he fired shots across the road at that very busy intersection.

"It was extremely reckless to shoot through traffic at 3 p.m. with a lot of pedestrians and traffic in that area," said Atlanta Police Officer Stephanie Brown.

The man who confronted the teen gunman says he's surprised at how young he is and says he needs to be off the streets.

"He needs to be caught, because do you see how young he looked? It's only going to get worse, the next person might die. I was just lucky enough to make it out," said the man.