COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Neighbors who knew the man killed by Cobb County police say they were just hanging out with him the night before.
They described his behavior as erratic, but told Channel 2′s Ashli Lincoln they did not expect for the situation to escalate to something like this.
“I was shocked when I came to the door,” neighbor John Brown said.
The GBI said officers were called to the Heritage Lake subdivision in Mableton just after 11:30 a.m. on Saturday.
They say Cesar Anthony Pena, 41, shot a firearm at family members inside the home.
Cobb County police and SWAT members lined their neighborhood with guns drawn.
At some point, the GBI says Pena stepped outside onto the front porch with a shotgun. Two officers shot Pena, killing him.
No one inside the house or any officers were injured.
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“Man, this got to be very serious right here,” a neighbor could be heard saying on cell phone video.
Video from a neighbor’s Ring doorbell shows the moment police focused in on the home.
“And they’re pointing them at his house, and that’s when all the drama unfolded,” Walden said.
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“It was a lot of screaming,” neighbor John Brown said.
Brown said the young man’s daughter and mother were in the home at the time of the shooting.
“I know for a fact he would not harm his daughter, and his mother, he talked about her a lot,” he said.
Brown said police told him the man came to the door with a gun. He told Lincoln that he begged police to let him help talk the man down.
“If you just let me speak, I think we can resolve this and they said ‘No, no, we’ll wait,’” he said.
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Walden lives next door and said she was friends with the man, who was troubled, but was trying to turn his life around.
“For it to end like this, I felt like somebody could have talked to him,” she said.
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