GBI investigating after armed man killed during standoff with cops in Houston County
A 32-year-old Houston County man who was armed with a gun during a standoff with the police Tuesday evening was shot and killed by at least one of the officers on the east side of Perry, authorities said.
Investigators have not yet publicly divulged what action the man who died may have made to prompt the fatal gunfire.
The man, Matthew Deese, at some point during the two-and-a-half-hour episode barricaded himself inside a house at 115 Bedford Court.
He emerged from the home with a gun in his hand shortly before 7 p.m., and in the front yard he was fatally shot by a member or members of the Houston Sheriff’s Response Team.
The team had been called in as officers repeatedly tried to persuade Deese, who worked at Robins Air Force Base, to put down his weapon and surrender.
In a statement, the GBI, which routinely investigates police shootings, said Wednesday that Deese refused to comply with the officers. The statement does not mention Deese’s actions the moment before he was shot.
The incident began unfolding shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday when Perry police officers answered a call about a “suicidal subject with a gun,” a Perry police statement said.
The neighborhood where the incident happened lies roughly half a mile west of the intersection of Perry Parkway and Houston Lake Road near the old Perry Country Club.