MARIETTA, Ga. — Serving warrants can be one of the most dangerous jobs in law enforcement, as tragically shown by the deaths of two Cobb County sheriff's deputies.
"I’ve been involved in serving warrants where the individual absolutely did not want to go to jail. No way," said Mike Puglise, a former Lilburn and Gwinnett County police officer who left law enforcement to become an attorney.
He said he helped serve more than 100 warrants.
"And I mean, they do fight," he said.
In recent years, several law enforcement officers in Georgia have been hurt in similar situations.
In 2018, Locust Grove officer Chase Maddox died while serving a warrant in Henry County. Two others were injured. Earlier this year, Coweta County investigator and U.S. Marshal William Helton was shot while serving a warrant. In 2016, Riverdale police Maj. Greg "Lem" Barney was shot and killed while supervising officers serving a no-knock warrant.
Puglise says warrants require lethal force preparation balanced with a negotiator’s patience.
"It’s kind of ironic. Some of the murder warrants I’ve served, they are pretty docile. They have been waiting for the day that they’re going to get picked up. It’s almost closure for them in a weird way," Puglise said, noting that other instances can become unpredictably confrontational.
Violence is the exception, not the rule. Sometimes, it’s the target of the warrant who is killed – like Jamarion Robinson in East Point. U.S. marshals said Robinson was killed during an exchange of gunfire in 2016, as law enforcement tried to serve him with a warrant. His family has challenged the police account in court, and some of the officers involved now face charges.
Puglise says officers have to both use training and do research to decrease the risk while serving warrants.
"You have to use that balance, go in with some type of patience, even maybe sometimes elicit the help of friends and neighbors and sometimes even family members that’ll assist you in serving that warrant," Puglise said.
He adds friends and family are sometimes motivated to help police in order to reduce the risks associated with serving a warrant.