Obstruction case against council member delayed

Police say Copeland refused to cooperate after car crash.

The court case of a Marietta City Councilman charged with obstruction following a traffic collision has been delayed for at least another month.

The arraignment for Reginald Copeland was rescheduled for 9 a.m. Friday, Sept. 20, before Cobb State Court Chief Judge Maria Golick. The Cobb County Solicitor General’s Office originally scheduled the arraignment for Friday. Copeland was not present for Friday’s hearing.

Cobb Assistant Solicitor General Steven Ellis said that since an accusation has not been filed against Copeland, the case was pushed back.

An accusation is the formal charging of a crime by a prosecutor or solicitor general. Arraignments are scheduled before a judge for defendants to formally hear the charges they are facing and to enter a plea.

Copeland, 57, was charged in May with three counts of misdemeanor obstruction after Marietta police say he refused to provide a driver’s license or get out of his truck when asked to do so by police. Officers said they had to physically remove him from the truck and handcuff him.

According to police, Copeland’s 2017 Ford pickup truck was struck May 24 by a woman making a U-turn at the intersection of South Fairground and Haley streets. Officers responded to the collision and asked Copeland to provide his driver’s license, which he refused, an arrest warrant states. He also resisted getting out of the truck “by grabbing the center console and pulling himself toward the center of the vehicle,” according to the warrant.

Copeland was removed from the truck, handcuffed, taken into custody and booked into the Cobb County jail. He was released with a $1,870 bond. Copeland, who was elected to his first term in November 2017, has not returned calls or emails seeking comment.

Neither Copeland nor the other driver, a 19-yearold woman, involved in the collision was injured. That woman, who had a passenger in her car at the time of the incident, was cited for the crash.

Marietta Councilman Reginald Copeland is not formally charged.