Retired high school coach, teacher shot to death by officers during SWAT standoff

ADAIRSVILLE, Ga. — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced the identity of the man who prompted a SWAT response in Adairsville with the Bartow County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday night.

According to the GBI, 60-year-old Chris Cochran was shot and killed as officers worked to resolve a crisis at a home on Wesley Mill Drive.

Cochran had threatened his wife and a crisis intervention team that went to the house to respond and provide help.

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When Cochran began making threats, his wife and the intervention team took shelter in a neighbor’s house across the street.

The GBI said Bartow County Sheriff’s deputies went to the neighbor’s home to protect the wife and crisis team. Cochran ran back inside his home, which officials said was known to contain “a large number of rifles” that he owned.

Then the GBI said Cochran started breaking windows at the house and threatening to kill them.

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The SWAT team was sent in to remove the deputies, wife and witnesses and take Cochran into custody.

Cochran pointed a long gun out of a second floor window and repeatedly threatened SWAT, deputies and witnesses, according to the GBI.

The GBI said a SWAT officer shot Cochran and he was pronounced dead at the scene by the Bartow County Coroner’s Office. No officers were injured during the situation.

Officials said his body will be taken to the GBI Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy, and the GBI is now conducting an independent investigation of the incident.

Channel 2′s Bryan Mims was in the neighborhood Monday afternoon, where neighbors called the couple “incredibly nice people” and said Cochran was a retired high school coach and teacher.

Video provided by neighbors showed the moments SWAT, deputies and police set up in driveways near the interstate.

A neighbor recounted the moments officers swarmed in.

“My grandmother said she can hear the cops say get down, get down,” Jada McCollum told Channel 2 Action News. “They wouldn’t let her out of the house. They had to cover the blinds and hide.”

Details on what started the incident with Cochran and his wife have not been released.

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