Man killed by police after threat with gun

Neighbors’ incident was second in two days, police say.

A man was shot and killed by officers Sunday after a disturbance between neighbors in Clayton County, police said.

Clayton County officers responded around noon to Maddox Road, police Chief Kevin Roberts said from the scene. Upon arrival, they made contact with one of the neighbors. While speaking with the neighbor, another man began yelling from across the street, Roberts said.

“At that time he was unarmed and not a threat to officers,” he said.

The man then went into his home and came back out with a gun, authorities said. Roberts said the man fired a single round after yelling at the officers. They believed the man was shooting at them, and backup was called, a police spokeswoman later clarified.

“Those responding officers subsequently arrived and they engaged the suspect outside his residence verbally, and during that interaction he turned towards those officers with his weapon, those officers discharged their weapon, causing injury to him,” Roberts said.

Roberts said the officers fired “multiple times” at the man, identified by the GBI as Miguel Eduardo Perez Gonzalez, 38, of Morrow. He died at a hospital, and no one else was injured in the incident.

The GBI confirmed the police department’s account of events.

“No one expects to have to take a life and certainly no one expects to have to sacrifice a life, but these honorable men and women do their job every day knowing that in the back of their mind,” Roberts said.

The previous night, Roberts said Clayton officers responded to the neighborhood off Fielder Road regarding a disturbance between the same neighbors. Gonzalez went to his neighbor’s home, pointed a weapon at the cameras outside and “made verbal threats to those inside,” according to Roberts.

The deadly incident comes just five days after another officer-involved shooting in which Clayton County Field Training Officer Henry Laxson was killed while responding to a domestic disturbance in Rex. GBI agents believe Arthur Allen Gilliam, 35, killed two women, shot a 12-year-old boy in the face and fired at officers, The Atlanta Journal-constitution previously reported. An officer returned fire, killing Gilliam.

Laxson was the third Georgia officer killed in the line of duty in November and the eighth in 2021.

“Officer Laxson was the very best of us,” the department posted on social media. “He epitomized everything good and decent about Clayton County and the Clayton County Police Department. He will be missed but never forgotten.”

Roberts addressed Laxson’s death from the scene of Sunday’s shooting but said it had no bearing on the officers’ response.

“They are at their highest level of being on guard every day beyond this week’s shooting,” the chief said. “Just the climate in and of itself as the violent crimes seem to be escalating. Every officer in the country should be performing their duty at a heightened level.”

It is the 91st officer-involved shooting the GBI has been asked to investigate this year. The AJC also tracks officer-involved shootings that don’t involve the GBI, and those numbers sometimes differ from the GBI’S tally.