By Mark Woolsey
[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]
Police arrested a suspect after a structure fire and SWAT standoff in a Mableton neighborhood on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning, Cobb emergency personnel responded to a blaze at a home on Wandering Vine Drive. After firefighters put the flames out emergency personnel found out that the suspect,an adult male, was possibly still inside the home. It turned out he was barricaded and refused to come out.
Cobb Police spokesman Sgt. E.D. Smith says SWAT officers eventually cleared the building and the suspect was arrested at around 12:15 p.m. after a several-hour standoff.
Smith says the suspect faces arson charges coming from the Cobb Fire and Emergency Services investigation.
Authorities didn’t release the name of the suspected arsonist. Police say nobody was injured in the incident.