WELL, THAT’S A RELIEF: Police: Mableton fatal assault not racially motivated.

The deadly assault of a Mableton man has become a national story, at least online, with several web sites and blogs claiming Joshua Chellew was killed because he was white.

Initially reported as a hit-and-run, police now say Chellew died June 30 after an attack by four black teenagers in Cobb County.

According to the arrest warrant, the 36-year-old victim was repeatedly punched and kicked by the youths outside a Chevron gas station. Chellew, badly beaten, eventually stumbled onto Mableton Parkway, where he was run over. He died at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Witnesses told police that the four suspects made no attempt to aid Chellew or stop the approaching vehicle that hit him. The driver of that car was not charged, said Cobb Police Sgt. Dana Pierce.

A brutal crime, no question, but not one fueled by racial animosity, according to investigators.

“This was not racially motivated,” Pierce told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Cobb County police are investigating this like any other crime.”

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