Emergency vehicles are seen outside a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Jasper, Ga., Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilie Megnien)

By The Canadian Press

One person hospitalized and suspect shot after a shooting at a Georgia VA clinic, police say

Mar 17, 2026 | 12:50 PM

JASPER, Ga. (AP) — Police in a small town at the southern end of the Blue Ridge mountains in Georgia said they were responding to a shooting Tuesday at a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic, and at least one person was airlifted to the hospital.

Jasper police were sent to the VA clinic around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the city said in a statement on its Facebook page. The officers located the suspected shooter and confronted the suspect, who was shot, the statement said.

Calls to the Pickens County VA clinic were routed to various recordings on Tuesday afternoon and no one answered the phone.

The outpatient clinic in Jasper offers services that include primary care and specialty health services, including laboratory, telehealth and mental health care, according to its website.

Jasper, a town of about 5,000 people, is roughly 60 miles (km) north of downtown Atlanta. Signs on a highway through the town call it Georgia’s “First Mountain City” as the Appalachian Mountains come into view.

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Photos from the local newspaper, the Pickens Progress, showed more than a half-dozen law enforcement officers responding to the scene, wearing tactical vests near a strip mall in the town.

The clinic opened in the summer of 2020, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said in a news release announcing its grand opening.

“The new Pickens County VA Clinic will increase access and ensure that our Veterans continue to receive the high-quality health care that they have earned and deserve closer to their home,” officials said in the release.

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Martin reported from Kennesaw, Georgia.

Emilie Megnien And Jeff Martin, The Associated Press