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Matthew Joseph Wilbanks

Age : 41

Gender : Male

Race : White

Date : 09/17/2021

Location : 4592 North Landing Drive

City : Marietta

County : Cobb

State : Georgia

Agency : Cobb County Police Department

Officer(s) :Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during domestic disturbance call

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/17/2021, a Cobb County Police Department officer shot and killed 41-year-old Matthew Joseph Wilbanks at 4592 North Landing Drive in Marietta after police were called to his home during a mental health crisis. The encounter began shortly after midnight with a 911 call reporting a domestic dispute involving a man who was suicidal.
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This was therefore not a police response to a reported crime committed by Wilbanks in public, an attempted arrest, or a traffic stop. Officers were summoned specifically because of a domestic situation involving a person reportedly threatening self-harm.
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When officers arrived, they encountered Wilbanks armed with what Cobb police later described as a large hunting-type knife. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation alleged that Wilbanks advanced toward the officers while holding the knife. Cobb police similarly said that Wilbanks presented a threat to the officers.
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One Cobb County police officer fired, striking Wilbanks. He died at the scene. The publicly released GBI account provides no further description of the distance between Wilbanks and the officers, the number of shots fired, commands given to Wilbanks, whether officers attempted de-escalation, whether less-lethal weapons were available or used, or the length of time between police arrival and the shooting.
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The Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted the independent investigation at Cobb County Police Department's request, with the completed case to be forwarded to the Cobb County District Attorney's Office for review. The shooting was the 70th police shooting the GBI had been requested to investigate in Georgia during 2021.
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The timing of Wilbanks' death is particularly significant. Cobb County police had shot and killed 39-year-old Robert Parks only four days earlier, on 09/13/2021, during a SWAT barricade at the Concord Crossing Apartments in Smyrna. The GBI investigated that killing as well.
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Cobb County Police had also killed 28-year-old Devonte Dawayne Brown less than a month earlier, on 08/18/2021. Brown was shot during a police pursuit after officers attempted to box in his vehicle. Brown's family publicly questioned that shooting and disputed the necessity of the deadly force. Thus, Wilbanks was at least the third person killed by Cobb County Police in approximately one month.
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Even more strikingly, Wilbanks' death became the first of two fatal police encounters involving mental health crisis calls in Cobb County on consecutive days. On 09/18/2021, Smyrna police shot and killed 27-year-old Unsfored Lewis Thurmond III after officers responded to another call concerning a suicidal man. Contemporary local reporting specifically identified the extraordinary circumstance of two people being killed by police on suicidal-person calls in the county within two days.
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The available reporting on Wilbanks' death remains almost entirely dependent on the police and GBI account. The public narrative does not provide an independent eyewitness description of the final confrontation or sufficient detail to determine how police handled the mental health crisis before deadly force was used.
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No affirmative evidence located in the later public record establishes that Wilbanks' family or an eyewitness publicly contested the official account of the shooting, and no wrongful-death or civil-rights lawsuit arising from Wilbanks' killing was identified.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The involved officer has not been publicly identified.
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The agency history immediately surrounding Wilbanks' death is unusually relevant. Cobb County Police had already been involved in multiple fatal shootings during the preceding months. On 06/13/2021, Cobb officers and SWAT members shot and killed 20-year-old Luis Rey Ruiz following a domestic-dispute response in Acworth. On 08/18/2021, an officer killed Devonte Dawayne Brown during a vehicle encounter. On 09/13/2021, Cobb SWAT killed Robert Parks during a barricade in Smyrna. Four days later, an officer killed Wilbanks during this mental health crisis.
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That means Cobb County Police killed four people in approximately three months, including three people in the 31-day period ending with Wilbanks' death. The sequence is directly relevant departmental context rather than unrelated agency history, particularly because Wilbanks' shooting occurred only four days after another Cobb police killing.
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The context became still more notable the following day when Smyrna Police killed Thurmond during another mental health crisis elsewhere in Cobb County. Contemporary reporting recognized the two consecutive-day deaths as a pattern significant enough to examine together.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-09-17/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-cobb-county
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/cobb-county-police-gbi-investigate-officer-involved-shooting
https://eastcobbnews.com/cobb-police-shoot-kill-man-in-ne-cobb-domestic-dispute/
https://patch.com/georgia/marietta/man-knife-threatening-harm-himself-killed-police-gbi
https://cobbcountycourier.com/2021/09/cobb-police-officer-fatally-shoots-man-allegedly-advancing-with-knife-gbi-investigating/
https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-09-14/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-cobb-county
https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-08-19/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-cobb-county
https://gbi.georgia.gov/node/24186
https://cobbcountycourier.com/2021/09/second-fatal-shooting-by-police-in-cobb-county-on-suicidal-person-call-in-two-days/