The Georgia Bureau of Investigation issued its initial statement on the shooting of a man by Cobb County police in Mableton.
[The Cobb County Courier has a policy of withholding or redacting the name of suspects unless and until the person is convicted in a court of law or enters a plea of guilty. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty, and the internet has no effective way of removing reports of arrest if the person is exonerated. We do make exceptions in high-profile cases or charges against public officials where exoneration is likely to be as widely publicized as the initial arrest]
The GBI statement is reprinted below, with the suspect’s name redacted by the Cobb County Courier:
Mableton, GA (January 2, 2023) – The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is conducting an officer involved shooting investigation in Mableton, GA. The Cobb County Police Department (CCPD) asked the GBI to conduct an independent investigation on January 2, 2023. One man was shot and injured. No officers were injured during the incident.
Preliminary information indicates that on January 1, at 7:47 p.m., someone called 911 call to report a man walking around the neighborhood carrying a long gun for several hours. The man, identified as [name redacted], age 35, of Mableton, had pointed his firearm at several people during this time. CCPD officers responded and gave verbal commands to [name redacted] to drop the firearm. [name redacted] did not comply. At some point during the incident, officers shot [name redacted]. [name redacted] ran inside his home on David Lane SW in Mableton, with his firearm. Cobb County SWAT responded and gave verbal commands to [name redacted]. After several hours, [name redacted] came outside of the home and surrendered. [name redacted] was taken to a local area hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. [name redacted] was treated and released and taken to the Cobb County Jail. No officers were injured during the incident.
The GBI will conduct an independent investigation of the officer involved shooting and once complete, will turn the case over to the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office for review.
This is the 1st officer involved shooting the GBI has been requested to investigate in 2023.
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.