East Cobb man charged with 8 counts of aggravated assault on police

A man who Cobb Police said barricaded himself at a home in East Cobb for several hours Tuesday after firing gunshots has been charged with eight counts of aggravated assault on police officers.

Cobb Sheriff’s Office records show that Donald Terry Welborn Jr., 57, is being held without bond at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center.

He is accused of shooting at officers after he fired a weapon in a bedroom where his wife was sleeping, and striking the homes of neighbors with gunfire.

Welborn was booked Tuesday on the aggravated assault charges, which are felonies, and three misdemeanor counts of reckless conduct for the other shootings.

Welborn, whose home address is listed as 2518 Kingsley Drive, off Post Oak Tritt Road and near Johnson Ferry Road, was apprehended there shortly after noon on Tuesday, according to Cobb Police.

According to a criminal warrant taken out against Welborn, he was at that address around 5:30 a.m. and went into a bedroom where Susan Welborn was sleeping, then shot at a ceiling fan.

According to Cobb court records, she is Welborn’s wife, but they had been separated. Susan Welborn filed for divorce in Cobb Superior Court later Tuesday afternoon. The filing states they had been married since 1994, but the marriage was “irretrievably broken” and that they had been living in a “bona fide state of separation.”

The warrant also states that Welborn was inside the residence when he shot at the homes of two neighbors, one next door and another across the street, striking their homes.

A statement issued Wednesday afternoon by Sgt. Wayne Delk, a Cobb Police spokesman, said the first officers who arrived at the scene said they heard shots coming from a residence at 2518 Kingsley Drive and that were fired in their direction.

The warrant alleges that eight officers were shot at by Welborn outside the home.

The Cobb Police SWAT team and a crisis negotiation team later arrived and “after an extended negotiation” the suspect, identified as Welborn, was arrested without injuries to him or the officers.

Delk further said that a police bomb squad checked the house and no explosive devices were found.

Police said a 911 dispatcher got a call from Kingsley Drive in the New Castle neighborhood around 5:30 a.m. of gunshots being fired, both inside a home and outside in the neighborhood.

Police blocked off the New Castle and nearby Arthur’s Vineyard neighborhoods while negotiators attempted to get a man to come out of his home.

Delk said Wednesday that the incident remains under investigation and anyone with information is asked to call the Cobb County Police Department’s Crimes Against Persons Unit at 770-499-3945.