Your email address will not be published. The pastor may have fled the police, the grand jury concluded, because he feared his reputation would be ruined if his relationship with Barrett were exposed. "The unfortunate thing for me is people who claim to be forgiven by God are unwilling to forgive others," Franklin said. Whether youre a lifelong resident of D.C. or you just moved here, weve got you covered. In September 2009, the A national expert on police shootings was consulted. Still, local law enforcement officials tried to smear him. Ayers widow, Abigail, responded with a civil lawsuit seeking damages for gross and plain incompetence by both officers and their supervisors in March 2010. Authorities have identified a man accused of standing on Interstate 71 northbound and shooting at vehicles Friday morning near the Gemini Place interchange. 8. One of the bullets reportedly grazed one of the victims. The woman who was in the car with Ayers was taken into custody and faces drug charges, Bankhead said. Abigail Marilyn Ayers was originally awarded $2.3 million in damages and expenses by a jury in February. Abigail Ayerss lawsuit also alleged that Harrison and Officer Chance Oxner, who initially bought the drugs from the woman Ayers was counseling, had a history of disciplinary problems, including use of illicit drugs. Jonathan Ayers, Rodolfo Rudy Cardenas, Alberta Spruill, Mario Paz, Kathryn Johnston and others could have been prevented. Enter your email below to start! In a democratic republic, civilians are not executed in paramilitary-like raids based on guilt by association. Many African Americans in that part of Texas, including members of the local NAACP chapter and Smith County Commissioner Andrew Mellontree, were outraged that Baggett dodged both criminal and civil charges. Both units serve Habersham County and are under the jurisdiction of Sheriff Joey Terrel and DA Brian Rickman. Jonathan Ayers, 28, was shot Sept. 1, 2009, in On November 21, 2006, plainclothes officers Jason R. Smith, Gregg Junnier and Arthur Tesler carried out a no-knock drug raid on Johnstons Atlanta home based on bad information from an informant/marijuana dealer named Alex White. We hope you will! Some of the officers claimed that Paz appeared to be going for a gun, and they fatally shot him twice in the back in front of his wife. Drug raids are often conducted based on information from informants (many of them drug users and/or low-level drug dealers), but all too often, the information is unreliable and costs innocent victims their lives. He wasnt authorized to make arrests or to carry a gun. "Tell your boss we demand justice for these murdering thugs,'" was one of the first messages left for him, Rickman said. In September 2009, the young pastor Ayers was ministering to a young woman whom a Georgia drug task force was investigating on drug charges. A grand jury on Friday found that an officer-involved shooting in which a Lavonia minister was killed was justified. Jonathan Ayers had taken money out of an ATM in the convenience store and was beginning to pull out of the parking lot when Harrison, along with other deputies dressed in plainclothes, according to court documents, approached him. Ayers widow believes her husband thought he was being robbed and tried to get away. Up until that moment, Ayers was known to most as a man devoted to his family and faith. Ayers had not been a suspect in any drug investigation. The officer that was struck by the car was treated and released at a local hospital. WebAfter Ayers tried to drive past the descending officers, Harrison shot and killed him. Stroberg has been critical of how the case was presented to the grand jury. In Denver, one such person was 45-year-old Ismael Mena, who was shot and killed by a SWAT team during a no-knock raid on September 29, 1999. OnJuly 12, 1998, Houston officers raided Navarroshome based on an alleged drug users claim that drugs were being sold there. WebShooting a commercial for emagine theater that will be played at every theater across the country before every movie they play..awesome Jump to Sections of this page You've just returned to your car after getting cash from an ATM. Grand jury to review police shooting of Georgia pastor, Probe of Georgia pastor's shooting expected to take another month, Rally planned for Georgia pastor killed in botched drug sting, Georgia Baptist pastor killed in botched drug sting. "Based upon this finding, we the Grand Jury believe that the officers involved in this incident would be immune from criminal prosecution pursuant to Official Code of Georgia Annotated 16-3-24.2.". Harrison said he initially thought his partner was seriously injured or dead and he thought the car was going to hit him, too. Barley was arraigned virtually before a judge in 1st District Court, appearing by web conference from jail Monday afternoon. "People are so ramped up and emotional," Mike Ayers of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told the AJC. That substance abuser was a police informant who gave Boston narcotics officers the address of an alleged drug dealer who lived in the same building as Williams, but a SWAT team raided the wrong apartmentWilliams apartmentand after being violently shoved onto the ground and handcuffed, the minister began to vomit. Rev. Franklin said if the person shot that day had been "a druggie, a thug, a person of disrepute, then it could have been a completely different response from the public. (You can watch surveillance video of the altercation here.) All rights reserved. But the task force also serves two other counties, and so is also overseen by the sheriffs of those counties. WebA federal jury awarded more than $2.3 million Thursday afternoon to the family of a Toccoa pastor shot and killed by a sheriffs deputy. And while Johnston was lying on the floor dying, Smith handcuffed her. Dixon, who was a paraplegic and was battling pneumonia, was in her bedroom when narcotics officers raided her home at 2am; an informant claimed he had bought drugs from Dixons granddaughter. He said the official explanation of what happened "flew in the face of credulity.". For example, Claytor said, the first media reports said Ayers was involved in the drug trade. The 14-second incident has split this otherwise pro-law enforcement corner of the state. In a lawsuit filed last week, Abigail Ayers makes some astonishing new allegations about the competence of the police officers who killed her husband, the supervisors who hired them, and the law enforcement agencies and the grand jury that investigated Ayers' death. The Rev. And he continues to get anonymous messages, including the Christmas card depicting Hell. When Ayers left a gas station/convenience store after using an ATM and saw three plainclothes officers pointing their guns at him, he had no idea they were cops. 3.23.2010 7:00 AM. Shortly after he got back into his car, a black Escalade tore into the parking lot. The officers claim Ayers reckless driving gave them reasonable cause to believe their lives were in danger and that he was trying to avoid being questioned. Accelyne Williams was no drug dealer. Claytor, whose son was a close friend of Ayers, said within hours of the shooting, law enforcement started "spinning this story" and "covering their tracks." Stephens County sheriff Randy Shirley has placed both officers involved in the incident on paid administrative leave, he said. Many people from across the political spectrumfrom the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the National Urban League and the Rev. By the time Billy Shane Harrison received the Christmas card depicting Hell, he was numb to the damnation he had endured since he pulled the trigger and killed a fleeing man on Sept. 1. Idexx Laboratories Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Ayers is taking a medical leave of absence following what the company said was a serious bicycling accident on June 27. "The subject kept going and drove off," Bankhead said. WebCNN video shows Pastor Jonathan Ayers' final moments. They say Ayers backed his car into one agent and another fired at him as he maneuvered his car in a threatening manner. Radley Balko is a senior editor at Reason magazine. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. In the process, he nicked one agent. WebJonathan Paul Ayers, a pastor at the small Shoal Creek Baptist Church, was shot outside a Toccoa convenience store by plainclothes drug agents on Sept. 1. That a police officer untrained in the use of lethal force and unqualified to be holding a badge and gun was put on a narcotics task force, and then placed in a position where he was able to shoot and kill a non-suspect is worse. One of the most disturbing examples of "collateral damage" in the war on drugs was that of the Rev. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment at Fort Bragg, N.C., before reporting to the 173rd in July 2006. As he pulled out of the station, Ayers grazed Officer Oxner with his car. WebJonathan Ayers of Hart County, age 28, died Tuesday night at Stephens County Hospital after being treated for a gunshot wound received during an incident at a convenience But in the drug war, the combination of SWAT teams, no-knock raids and sloppy police work can have deadly consequences for innocent people. | The police were trailing Barrett at the time. He had just gotten $20 from an ATM machine and thought they wanted to rob him. "I think I would try to run over them or get away the best way I could.". Jonathan Andrew Barley was booked Saturday night into the Cache County Jail. Ayers widow, Abby Ayers, lives in Gainesville and has retained a local attorney in the case. The person I blame in this whole thing is the person selling the drugs, Terrell said. Undercover narcotics officers who had been trailing Barrett suspected that she was selling crack cocaine, and when Ayers gave her $23, they began trailing Ayers. Friends said Ayers had been ministering to the woman trying to convince her to get off drugs. At the heart of this outrage, though, once again, is our increasingly demented, hysterical, all-too-literal drug war. For three days in December, a grand jury was presented with the interviews and watched the video. A cafeteria-style restaurant leads this list of 12 popular spots, SPONSORED: See the Great Smoky Mountains in style. Joe Lancaster Garcia had been in the Army since October 2002. Based on that finding, jurors said officers involved in the incident "would be immune from criminal prosecution" under Georgia law. 3.1.2023 4:00 AM, John Stossel The headline of this post has been changed to reflect the distinction.). Harrison fired shots, and one struck Ayers in the abdomen. Accessibility | The most recent, entered into court records Aug. 17, asks District Judge Richard Story to grant summary judgment, a determination made by a court without a full trial. When he returned and got into his car they pounced. He then put the car in drive and accelerated forward, nearly striking Billy Shane Harris, an agent for the Mountain Narcotics Criminal Investigation & Suppression Team. In her September interview with the North Georgian, Barrett told the paper that Ayers had been trying to help kick her drug habit, but later, while facing charges related to both the Ayers case and another incident, she told investigators that Ayers had in previous years paid her for sex. Ayers gave her the $23 in his pocket to help cover her rent. WebOne man is dead and a second person was sent to the hospital after a shooting in Treme on Tuesday, Oct. 12. Heart of this post has been changed to reflect the distinction..... Been changed to reflect the distinction. ) man devoted to his family and faith way I could ``!, a black Escalade tore into the parking lot at him as he pulled out of the Georgia Bureau investigation... 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