Georgia · Richmond County · Crime

Augusta, GA Officer-Involved Shooting on Tybee Court: Donte Godwin, 35, Arrested After Lovers Lane Search in Richmond County

The man deputies hunted overnight along Lovers Lane is in the Charles B. Webster Detention Center, charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. No deputies were hurt in the gunfire near Sapelo Circle.

By Kate Thompson Published Sept. 4, 2026, 8:20 p.m. ET Updated Sept. 4, 2026 at 8:20 p.m. ET 11 min read Developing

Who was arrested, and on what charge?

Deputies took Donte Godwin, 35, into custody, the sheriff’s office announced Friday evening, a day after gunfire on a residential street in Augusta sent a deputy behind his patrol car for cover and shut a main road for hours.

The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest Friday evening and said the Southeastern United States Marshals Fugitive Task Force worked the case alongside its own investigators, WFXG reported.

He was booked into the Charles B. Webster Detention Center on a charge of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. The sheriff’s office did not say where he was found.

A charge is an accusation. Godwin has not been tried, and he is presumed innocent unless a court finds otherwise.

What happened on Tybee Court Thursday evening?

Deputies were sent to the 100 block of Tybee Court at about 6:03 p.m. Thursday on a complaint of an assault, Sheriff Eugene Brantley said at a news conference Friday morning.

The caller was a woman who told deputies that Godwin had tried to pull her out of a United States Postal Service vehicle earlier in the day, then turned up at her home and threatened her.

The first deputy on scene stood in the driveway and spoke with both the woman and Godwin, who was in a vehicle. That deputy was Deputy Cook, according to The Augusta Press.

While the deputy was trying to settle the dispute, he saw what he took to be a shotgun beside Godwin and told him to step out, Brantley said.

Instead, Godwin drove a short way toward Sapelo Circle, stopped, and stepped out carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, according to the sheriff’s account. The deputy drew his own weapon, gave repeated commands to put the gun down, and radioed for backup.

Brantley quoted Godwin as shouting at the deputy: “Tell your partner to pull up; suicide by cop.”

A second deputy pulled up near Godwin’s vehicle moments later. At least one round was fired toward that deputy and his patrol car, and the deputy returned fire from behind the wheel, Brantley said.

Nobody in uniform was struck. No deputies were injured in the exchange.

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How did Thursday night unfold, hour by hour?

The sequence Brantley laid out Friday runs from a domestic complaint to a road closure in under four hours.

Why was Lovers Lane closed all evening?

After the shots, Godwin drove on to Lovers Lane, abandoned the vehicle and left on foot, Brantley said.

The first deputy took cover at the intersection of Tybee Court and Lovers Lane and kept giving commands toward the vehicle, believing Godwin might still be inside it. When more deputies reached the vehicle, he was gone.

K-9 units searched but did not find him. Deputies went through ditches, a creek and cars in the surrounding blocks, and a helicopter worked overhead, Atlanta News First reported.

The scene cleared shortly before 10 p.m. Thursday with the road still shut in both directions.

During the search the sheriff’s office circulated a description: 5 feet 11 inches, about 290 pounds, wearing a black shirt and teal shorts, last seen near Lovers Lane and Tybee Court.

Investigators took calls at 706-821-4850 and 706-821-1080. Investigator Britney Jones is a contact on the case, The Augusta Press reported.

Where are Tybee Court and Lovers Lane?

Tybee Court is a short residential street off Lovers Lane in Augusta, the seat of Richmond County in east Georgia on the South Carolina line. Sapelo Circle is another street in the same pocket of the neighborhood.

What does Georgia law require the State to prove?

The charge announced Friday is a felony, and it is a step up from simple assault in two separate ways: how the assault was carried out, and who it was carried out against.

Simple assault, in plain terms, is an attempt to commit a violent injury, or an act that puts another person in reasonable fear of an immediate violent injury. No weapon is needed.

Aggravated assault requires more. Under O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21(a), a person commits the offense by assaulting with intent to murder, to rape or to rob; with a deadly weapon or any object likely to cause serious bodily injury; with an object likely to cause strangulation; or by firing a gun from inside a motor vehicle, or immediately after getting out of one, toward a person. A shotgun pointed and fired at someone falls within the deadly-weapon branch.

The officer element sits in subsection (c). It applies when a person knowingly commits aggravated assault upon a public safety officer who is engaged in, or targeted because of, official duties. The term is defined for this article in O.C.G.A. § 16-5-19, which lists peace officers alongside correctional officers, jail officers, firefighters, emergency health workers, highway emergency response operators, juvenile correctional officers and probation officers.

The word “knowingly” is doing real work. The State has to show the accused understood he was dealing with an officer, not merely that an officer happened to be the person in front of him.

The sentence attached to subsection (c) is heavier than the general one. An assault on a public safety officer that involves discharging a firearm, committed by someone at least 17, carries ten to 20 years with a mandatory minimum of ten. Where no firearm is discharged and the assault involves more than the body alone, the range is five to 20 years with a three-year mandatory minimum. Either way a fine of at least $2,000 is attached.

A sentencing range is not a prediction. It describes the outer bounds a judge would work within after a conviction, and there has been no conviction here.

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What is known about Godwin’s prior record?

Brantley pointed reporters to an earlier case: a 2018 arrest on a felony marijuana charge that ended in a conviction in May 2019, Atlanta News First reported.

Court records reviewed by The Augusta Press show that 2018 case resolved as a conviction for dealing marijuana and for possessing a firearm while on first-offender probation, with ten years of probation imposed. The same records show more than five years served on separate cocaine possession and burglary sentences, a return to prison on a probation violation, and a most recent release on Jan. 5, 2022. A 2024 accusation involving illegal dumping near Old McDuffie Highway was dropped.

Prior cases are prior. They are not evidence in the case charged this week, and Georgia courts limit sharply when a jury may hear about them at all.

What happens next in the case?

Booking is the first formal step, and that has happened. From the detention center, the case moves toward a first appearance, sometimes called a commitment hearing, in front of a magistrate.

Georgia sets the outer limit by how the arrest was made. O.C.G.A. § 17-4-26 requires an officer arresting under a warrant to exercise reasonable diligence and, in any event, to bring the person before a committing judicial officer within 72 hours of arrest. The same section says the accused must be told when and where the hearing will be held, and that a person who is not notified shall be released. A different and shorter clock governs an arrest made without a warrant.

Bail runs through O.C.G.A. § 17-6-1. Most offenses are bailable by a court of inquiry, in practice a magistrate, weighing flight risk, danger to the community, the likelihood of intimidating witnesses and the risk of further felonies. The statute also fixes a list bailable only before a superior court judge, and aggravated assault joins that list when the accused has particular prior convictions or was on probation, parole or bail at the time.

Prosecution runs through the district attorney for the Augusta Judicial Circuit. O.C.G.A. § 15-6-1, which sets out the composition of every circuit in the state, lists that one as the counties of Burke and Richmond. Neighboring Columbia County sits in its own Columbia Judicial Circuit.

From there the ordinary path is a preliminary hearing, then presentation to a Richmond County grand jury, which decides whether an indictment issues.

What is the U.S. Marshals fugitive task force?

The unit named in Friday’s announcement is a standing regional partnership, not a squad assembled for this search.

Congress authorized the U.S. Marshals Service to run permanent regional fugitive task forces in the Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000. The Marshals run a Southeast regional task force covering Georgia, and it draws deputy marshals together with sworn officers detailed from state, county and municipal departments across the region.

The practical value to a county agency is reach. A local deputy’s authority ends at a jurisdictional line; an officer deputized to a federal task force can follow a wanted person across county and state lines and can draw on federal databases and analysts.

That is why a sheriff’s office pulls the task force in on a wanted-person case even when the underlying charge is entirely a state one, as it is here.

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Which agency holds the report?

The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office generated the report from Tybee Court and holds the investigative file, and it handles records requests through its own records division.

Georgia’s Open Records Act carves out open investigations. O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a)(4) provides that public disclosure is not required for “records of law enforcement, prosecution, or regulatory agencies in any pending investigation or prosecution of criminal or unlawful activity, other than initial police arrest reports and initial incident reports.”

The same paragraph says an investigation “shall no longer be deemed to be pending when all direct litigation involving such investigation and prosecution has become final or otherwise terminated.” The carve-out for the initial arrest report and the initial incident report is what makes the front page of a case obtainable while the rest stays closed.

What else has happened in Richmond County?

The county has run a heavy summer of violent-crime coverage. In August a man was named as wanted after an assault on Boy Scout Road, and deputies worked a shooting on Old Waynesboro Road in the same period.

Two other officer-involved cases from this year are collected below. In Liberty County, an officer-involved shooting outside a Hinesville bar went to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which named the wounded man and released a preliminary account within hours.

In Meriwether County, Warm Springs Officer Chris Fisher was shot and killed while on a traffic stop and a Blue Alert issued for the man sought, who was later found dead in South Carolina.

What we don’t know yet

Update log

Frequently asked questions

Who was arrested in the Augusta officer-involved shooting?
Donte Godwin, 35. The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday evening, Sept. 4, 2026, that he had been taken into custody with help from the Southeastern United States Marshals Fugitive Task Force and booked into the Charles B. Webster Detention Center on a charge of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. He is presumed innocent unless a court finds otherwise.

What happened on Tybee Court in Augusta?
Deputies were sent to the 100 block of Tybee Court at about 6:03 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, on an assault complaint. Sheriff Eugene Brantley said the encounter moved toward Sapelo Circle, where Godwin got out of a vehicle holding a 12-gauge shotgun. A second deputy arrived, at least one shot was fired toward that deputy and his patrol car, and the deputy fired back from inside the car. No deputies were hurt.

Was anyone injured in the Tybee Court shooting?
No deputies were injured, the sheriff’s office said. Whether Godwin was hurt has not been established by any agency.

Why was Lovers Lane closed in Augusta?
Deputies closed Lovers Lane in both directions during the search that followed the shooting. K-9 teams search, deputies check ditches, a creek and cars in the area, and a helicopter circled overhead. The scene cleared shortly before 10 p.m. Thursday with the road still blocked in both directions.

What is the charge against Donte Godwin?
Aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. Under O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21(a) the State must prove an assault carried out with intent to murder, rape or rob, or with a deadly weapon or an object likely to cause serious bodily injury. Subsection (c) raises the sentence when the person assaulted is a public safety officer engaged in official duties. A charge is an accusation, not a finding of guilt.

Where is Tybee Court in Augusta?
Tybee Court is a short residential street off Lovers Lane in Augusta, in Richmond County, east Georgia. Sapelo Circle is another street in the same neighborhood, and the sheriff’s office described the intersection of Tybee Court and Lovers Lane as the point where the first deputy took cover.

Who prosecutes the case in Richmond County?
The district attorney for the Augusta Judicial Circuit. O.C.G.A. § 15-6-1 lists that circuit as the counties of Burke and Richmond. Columbia County sits in a separate Columbia Judicial Circuit.

What is the Southeastern United States Marshals Fugitive Task Force?
It is one of the regional task forces the U.S. Marshals Service runs under the Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000, staffed by deputy marshals alongside sworn officers from state, county and city agencies. Local departments use it to locate people wanted on state charges, and a task force officer carries federal authority to work across jurisdictional lines.

How soon must a person arrested in Georgia see a judge?
O.C.G.A. § 17-4-26 requires an officer arresting under a warrant to bring the person before a committing judicial officer within 72 hours of the arrest, and states that a person not notified of the time and place of the commitment hearing shall be released. A separate and shorter clock applies to an arrest made without a warrant.

Can the public get the incident report?
The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office holds the file. O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a)(4) exempts records of law enforcement and prosecution agencies in a pending investigation, other than initial police arrest reports and initial incident reports, and says an investigation is no longer pending once all direct litigation involving it is final or otherwise terminated.