by Caleb Groves

[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]

On Friday, March 1, a Cobb County magistrate judge found probable cause to charge a Douglasville man for shooting a man who was driving a car in a restaurant parking lot in Mableton (the victim of the shooting survived).

The man was charged with three felonies, possession of a firearm while committing a crime, aggravated assault and possession or transfer of a firearm by a convicted felon or felony first offender.

Detective Timothy Boyd’s Testimony

During the hearing, Detective Timothy Boyd of the Cobb County Police Department provided testimony of what he saw after reviewing footage from the crime scene.

On Jan. 28, 2024, the Douglasville man was at City View Bar and Bistro off Cityview Drive and Riverside Parkway with a woman and an unidentified man. While the party was at the bistro, so was the woman’s ex-husband, Boyd said.

After a verbal confrontation between the ex-husband and the men, they left the restaurant. Once the ex-husband entered his truck and started to exit the parking lot, the Douglasville man and unidentified man fired guns through the rear window of the ex-husband’s truck, leaving the ex-husband hospitilized after being shot in the right hand.

Boyd said six rounds were found inside the ex-husband’s truck.

The Douglasville man was identified by the license plate of his Chevy 3500 through camera footage from the restaurant and the nearby Super 8 motel. The truck was found at his place of work and residence on two separate occasions by police, Boyd said.

After verifying the truck was owned by the man, police obtained an arrest warrant for the man and placed him in jail on Feb. 6, 2024, Boyd said.

Neither the interview with the Douglasville man nor the ex-wife provided any insight into the identity of the unidentified man or their relationships with him, Boyd said.

Judge Jennifer Inmon’s decision

The Douglasville man prior to this incident had a clean criminal history in Georgia. However, he did have a criminal history in Alabama.

The man’s defense attorney, Jasmine Brown-Melchor, said that he cares for his three children, while his wife is on active duty in the military and bond should be set for the man.

However, Magistrate Judge Jennifer Inmon believed the man to be a danger to the community, and the three children have their grandparents taking care of them in the meantime.

“I do believe he is a danger to the community,” Inmon said.

Inmon found there to be probable cause to charge the Douglasville man and denied bond. The case will move on to Cobb County Superior Court.