HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — The family of a man killed by two Houston County deputies has filed a lawsuit.
In 2022, Perry Police said Matthew Deese hit a car with his truck and drove home. They contacted the Houston County Sheriff's Office for assistance, and all agencies left his home on Bedford Court without arresting him.
Later that day, a Houston County Sheriff's deputy returned because of alleged suicidal comments made by Deese.
The family's lawsuit says deputies didn't follow protocol for dealing with allegedly barricaded and suicidal individuals. It says they refused to let Deese speak to family and ordered them to leave the home.
During the stand-off, Deese was speaking with deputies by phone. They say eventually, he walked out of his home and walked near two cars in his driveway. The family says as he did this two Houston County deputies walked towards him.
The lawsuit says that Deese put his hands in the air, holding a cell phone, and that's when deputies shot him.
That conflicts with the accounts of the law enforcement officials.
In 2023, District Attorney William Kendall said Deese came out and pointed a gun at an officer.
In a letter to the GBI, Kendall said the officers believed Deese posed a threat to them and others. He said he didn’t plan to take the case to a grand jury.
However, the family says Deese was unarmed and never posed a threat to deputies. They say no one should have used deadly force.
The Houston County Sheriff's Office would not comment on the lawsuit, including whether Deese was actually unarmed.
Cpt. Clay Chambers says in the case of a mental health crisis they utilize the Georgia Crisis and Access line, a statewide 800 number.
During daytime hours they can also reach out to Middle Flint Health and Wellness.
"At the scene, they can look and see what we're hearing from the person with their mental health episode, and then they can help us in terms of getting a 1013, if we need it, in terms of getting an involuntary physic eval," he said.
He says officers also receive Crisis Intervention Training from the Georgia Public Safety Training Center.
Chambers says Houston County does not have a co-responder program in place. In 2022, Georgia's General Assembly passed a co-responder law.
That law encourages law enforcement to create teams of mental-health counselors and officers to respond better to mental health-crises, but it doesn't require agencies to have those teams or provide any funding.