This morning the City of Powder Springs announced that Powder Spring PD was investigating a homicide in the city, that the sole suspect had been fatally shot by police in Henry County, and that the GBI was investigating the shooting by the Henry County Police.

The following is the GBI statement on the investigation:

GBI Investigates Officer Involved Shooting in Henry County

Ellenwood, GA (December 10, 2021) – The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is conducting an officer involved shooting investigation in Ellenwood, Henry County, GA. On Thursday, December 9, 2021, the Henry County Police Department asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate the incident that occurred on Panola Road in Ellenwood. One man was shot and died.

At 1:05 pm, while pursuing leads in a homicide investigation being conducted by the Powder Springs Police Department, officers of the Henry County Police Department, Henry County Sheriff’s Office, and McDonough Police Department, located Arrett Carr, age 64, in the vicinity of 158 Hill Lane in Ellenwood, GA, driving a pickup truck. Officers maintained visual contact with Carr as he drove to a nearby shopping center on Panola Road. As officers were speaking with Carr in the shopping center parking lot, Carr picked up a handgun. During the incident, several officers shot Carr. Carr died at the scene. No officers or bystanders were injured. A handgun was recovered from the scene.

The GBI will conduct an independent investigation. Once complete, it will be turned over to the Henry County District Attorney’s Office for review. 

This is the 92^nd officer involved shooting the GBI has been requested to investigate in 2021.

The GBI’s role in officer-involved shootings

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation routinely investigates the shooting of individuals by police officers, as well as any time an officer discharges a firearm while on duty, at the request of the police agency involved in the shooting.

Natalie Ammons, the Deputy Director of the GBI’s Office of Public Affairs explained to us how the system works.

Police agencies are not required to request outside investigation of officer-involved shootings, and there is no formal agreement between the GBI and local police departments.

But police agencies make the request so that an independent agency does the investigation in an incident involving their own officers.

The investigations are carried out by Special Agents in a regional office within the area where the police agency is located. Cobb County, and much of the rest of metro Atlanta, is in the GBI’s Region 10, based in Conyers.

In Region 10, officer-involved shootings and corruption investigations are the primary investigations Special Agents do, while in more rural areas with fewer police resources the agents handle a wider range of criminal investigations.

There is no special unit or division that conducts the investigation of officer-involved shootings.

The announcements of the investigations can be found at the GBI’s press release web page.