COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News has learned the Cobb County man police say stabbed and killed a Pentagon police officer Tuesday in Washington, DC, was out on bond after a burglary and for assaulting deputies.
Austin Lanz was first arrested in April for breaking into a neighbor’s home, then as he was getting booked into jail, the warrant said he assaulted multiple deputies, injured two of them and broke a Taser.
He was released on bond in May.
The FBI said Lanz murdered a Pentagon police officer on a bus platform outside the facility Tuesday morning in DC.
Investigators said Lanz, unprovoked, stabbed officer George Gonzalez. The two men struggled for the knife and the officer’s gun before Lanz shot himself.
Neighbor Vallerie Simpson just heard about the deaths. She told Channel 2′s Steve Gehlbach that Lanz lived with his parents at their Acworth home his whole life. She didn’t think he worked.
No one answered the door when Gehlbach stopped by the family home Wednesday.
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“I’m shocked. I’m really shocked,” Simpson said.
Neighbors say they never saw anything suspicious or had any issues until seeing police at the home back in April.
“I didn’t see them take him into custody, but I did see the cop cars out here, and they were talking to the family,” Simpson said.
While the FBI would not give a possible motive behind the incident on Wednesday, there are clues about the man’s mental state.
An arrest warrant from Lanz’s Cobb County arrest said he argued with the officer, saying he didn’t take anything from the house he burglarized and “went on to make statements about police having planes flying over the neighborhood, and that we had been tracking his phone.”
The FBI field office in Washington, DC put out more information Wednesday saying besides shooting himself, a number of other Pentagon police officers also fired at Lanz.
A bystander was also hurt, but has now been released from the hospital.
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