MARIETTA, Ga. –
U.S. authorities charged a man with murder Friday in the killing of two deputy sheriffs who were executing another arrest warrant outside a suburban home near Atlanta.
Cobb County Sheriff Stuart VanHoozer told reporters at a news conference that deputies were trying to arrest a man wanted for burglary in his driveway home that night. Thursday when another man inside confronted them with a gun.
A shooting ensued, VanHoozer said, when the armed man refused an order to lay down his weapon, and both deputies were fatally wounded. Both the shooting suspect and the man with a wanted warrant were arrested after a dispute with officers surrounding the neighborhood.
The two congressmen killed Friday have been identified as 42-year-old Jonathan Koleski and 38-year-old Marshall Ervin.
“They were outstanding men, men of character and integrity, family men loved by families and children,” Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens said at a conference. newspaper.
Both men arrested at the scene appeared in court for the first time on Friday afternoon.
Christopher Golden, 30, was charged with two counts of murder and two counts of aggravated assault against law enforcement officers. Christopher Cook, 32, has not been charged with the murder. But he was charged with six counts of burglary outstanding.
Both men were refused binding. It is not immediately known if they have a lawyer or not.
VanHoozer declined to give specifics about what happened during the standoff that ended with two men being arrested, the front door of the house no longer framed and windows broken. He said there were no more gunshots after the deputies were shot and no other officers were injured.
The police chief had previously told reporters that his deputies had been “ambushed”. On Friday afternoon, he deferred questions about the shooting to the county sheriff, whom the agency was investigating.
VanHoozer said police have been trying to come up with what they know in an “opening investigation” in which they still have limited information.
When asked if he would call the shooting an ambush, VanHoozer said: “What I have just given you is the truth. I won’t label it. “
Large Cobb County, with more than 760,000 inhabitants, is located just northwest of Atlanta and is one of Georgia’s most populous counties.
