jonathan ayers shooting

I knew then that no matter what the investigation showed, it was going to be a terrible situation, said Brian Rickman, the district attorney for the Mountain Judicial Circuit, which includes Stephens and two other counties. Police would later acknowledge he was not using or trafficking in illicit drugs. They pulled up behind him in an unmarked black SUV. WebOne man is dead and a second person was sent to the hospital after a shooting in Treme on Tuesday, Oct. 12. But that's really only the beginning of this mess. An investigation revealed that after Johnstons death, a major coverup was attempted, including planting bags of marijuana in her house and trying to bully White into lying and saying that Johnston was selling crack cocaine. 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. These are some of the best places to take them in Hall County, Best breakfast in Hall County? The law cited by the grand jury states in part that a person who uses threats or force in defense of self or others is immune from criminal prosecution. Abigail Ayers' civil suit also alleges prior disciplinary problems with both officers Oxner and Harrison, including alleged drug use. Chavalia later said he thought shots were coming from that bedroom, but the fact that he killed an unarmed woman holding a baby was inexcusable, especially in light of the fact that Wilson, according to her sister Tania Wilson, was not involved in drug sales herself. (She had allegedly sold an undercover officer $50 worth of cocaine.) Attorney General Eric Holder recently addressed the war on drugs during a speech for the American Bar Associations annual meeting, calling for the United States to seriously reevaluate its harsh policy of mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent, low-level drug offenses. The man that Harrison, a Stephens County sheriff's deputy, killed in downtown Toccoa was Jonathan Ayers a young, popular preacher who had inadvertently stepped into an undercover drug investigation. Several people working at the hospital told GBI investigators that Ayers told them he didn't know who shot him. Webofficial athlete of dream different sports and life & basketball brand Report this post Shooting Three officers, all undercover, got out of the vehicle and pointed their guns at Ayers. They also are pleading official immunity that allows police to decide where to investigate, arrest or use force, including deadly force, in carrying out their duties. Accessibility | Jonathan Andrew Barley was booked Saturday night into the Cache County Jail. An unmarked Escalade pulls up and three men jump out in masks and guns. He suspects they are private detectives. They said he had given her a ride to the motel where she lived, and was giving her rent money when spotted by narcotics detectives. The family of Jonathan Ayers has also filed a lawsuit against the police agency that killed him. It was later revealed that Rickman had appointed the head of the task force at the time of the Ayers shooting, and was a close personal friend with the officer (who is now deceased). Officers said they were in plain clothes but wore badges around their necks and identified themselves as police. I can't get into that, but that's what we're looking at.". The officers saw the woman in a car with Ayers and saw what they believed was a drug transaction, Bankhead said. 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. Ayers told hospital staff was that he thought he was being robbed. District Attorney Brian Rickman enlisted a special prosecutor to review the case file before turning it over to a grand jury. 3.1.2023 12:30 AM, Jacob Sullum According to Bankhead, Ayers then put the car into drive, and another officer fired into the car, hitting Ayers, because he thought his life was in danger. 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. 3.1.2023 7:00 AM, Charles Oliver Officer Billy Shane Harrison then opened fire, shooting Ayers in the stomach. After reviewing the GBI report and interviewing six witnesses five police officers and one expert in police use of force the grand jury ruled Harris' use of lethal force "legally justifiable based upon his objectively reasonable belief that such use of force was necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or others." But in addition to the $1.6 million, slightly more than $832,000 was awarded to the plaintiff in legal fees and expenses. A lot of white faces, too. And all three of them pled guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to violate her civil rights. One of the most disturbing examples of "collateral damage" in the war on drugs was that of the Rev. 2023 Baptist News Global. WebLast September, Ayers, a 28-year-old Baptist pastor from Lavonia, Georgia, was gunned down by a North Georgia narcotics task force in the parking lot of a gas station. Gwinnett Countys district attorney and a retired DA were asked to review the case. He says he and his wife have been followed, even down the mile-long dirt road to their house. Other members . No drugs and nothing else illegal was found in Ayers' car, Bankhead said, "even though what occurred would make any undercover officer working drugs think that was a possibility. District Attorney Brian Rickman praised the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for going to "very extraordinary lengths" to insure the investigation into the shooting was fair. From there he was taken to a hospital where he later died from massive blood loss. But the kicker has to be that the subsequent police-led investigations of this high-profile case failed to turn up such a critical piece of information. "He was an unarmed man. 345 homes proposed in this area at Hall-Gwinnett County line, Man indicted in strangling death, attorney says he maintains his innocence, These Hall high schools named Honor Schools for success in AP classes, Georgia Senate seeks to allow rural hospitals without permit. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Radley Balko is a journalist at The Washington Post. 1. On the other side are those who say Harrison and fellow deputy Chance Oxner did the best they could with the information they had when they tried to stop Ayers from driving away. But with the war on drugs, the concept of innocent until proven guilty has fallen by the wayside on countless occasions. An 18-member grand jury in Stephens County in northeast Georgia ruled that the officer who fired two shots that fatally wounded Jonathan Ayers, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia, Ga., was justified in using lethal force because he reasonably believed he was in physical danger. 10. The complaint alleges that Officer Harrison, the cop who shot Ayers, wasn't even authorized to arrest him. Dorothy Duckett, a 78-year-old neighbor, told the San Jose Mercury Newsthat when Cardenas was running away, he had his hands in the air and was yelling, Dont shoot.. Once the publicity hit, Harrison was suspended. She also received The decision to raid the Paz home, according to Ankeny, was made after narcotics officers found some bills and Department of Motor Vehicle records containing the familys address among the possessions of a drug suspect named Marcos Beltrn. It was refreshing to hear an attorney general make those statements; also encouraging is a recent Rasmussen poll finding that 82% of Americans see the war on drugs as a failure. ", The incident was caught on the gas station's surveillance camera. And not too many cases were it's obvious the shooting was bad or even unnecessary. In a civil suit, Johnstons family was awarded a $490,000 settlement. He died at the hospital. Ayers, who obviously thought they were gang members or carjackers, tried to escape but was shot and killed. "The video seemed to be the main catalyst for a lot of anger," Rickman said. The grand jury also heard from Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter and former Stephens County District Attorney Mike Crawford. Police would later acknowledge he was not using or trafficking in illicit drugs. Wanis Thonetheva, thats the person I blame in all this. U.S. District Judge Richard Story also decreased the initial amount awarded in damages and expenses. Police later said that was not true. The woman reportedly told detectives she didn't have the amount that had been agreed upon, but she would get it later in the day. Garcia had been in the Army since October 2002. 3.23.2010 7:00 AM. Ayers crashed his car, was taken to a hospital and died hours later in surgery. | The black-and-white video shows a dark Escalade pulling past some gas pumps and two men getting out. I'm thinking of Dustin Pigeon, Andrew Thomas, Daniel Shaver and Jonathan Ayers. 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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. A national expert on police shootings was consulted. Ayers lost control of his car not far away. Police said they later observed a white male in a red Honda Civic give the woman money. 345 homes proposed in this area at Hall-Gwinnett County line, Man indicted in strangling death, attorney says he maintains his innocence, These Hall high schools named Honor Schools for success in AP classes, Georgia Senate seeks to allow rural hospitals without permit. They followed him to a gas station where he stopped to withdraw money from an ATM machine. 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. AlthoughChavalia was acquitted of criminal charges, Wilsons family was awarded $2.5 million in 2010 in a civil lawsuit against the city of Lima. @w_katz1 Anyway, they do indeed go on and on. undercover with the Mountain Judicial Circuit Narcotics Criminal Investigation and Suppression team on the night of the shooting, Sept. 1, 2009. Still, many residents are unconvinced. Instead, Ayers had either been ministering to or having an affair with (depending on whom you believe) Johanna Kayla Jones Barrett, the actual target of the investigation. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. In February, I posted about a settlement in the death of Jonathan Ayers, an innocent pastor that this same drug task force killed in a drug operation in 2009. Enter your email below to start! Ayers widow, Abby Ayers, lives in Gainesville and has retained a local attorney in the case. Many people from across the political spectrumfrom the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the National Urban League and the Rev. In a democratic republic, the innocent until proven guilty concept is supposed to be sacrosanct.Jurors, police officers, judges and prosecuting attorneysat least in theoryare required to err on the side of caution, and if a guilty person occasionally goes free, so be it. In a democratic republic, civilians are not executed in paramilitary-like raids based on guilt by association. Jonathan Ayers, 28, was shot Sept. 1, 2009, in This article originally appeared on Alternet. Stroberg has been critical of how the case was presented to the grand jury. At an inquest, a predominantly white jury decided that the shooting was accidental and that Baggett should not be charged with anything. Heres the update back in October from Radley Balko. Mike Franklin with The Torch, the Church of God located in Demorest, Ga., knows Harrison and Oxner and also knew Ayers. He wasnt authorized to make arrests or to carry a gun. He could face up to 15 year in prison, if convicted. Mellontree, in a 1992 interview, told the New York Times: People cant accept the idea that a 84-year-old grandmother gets shot in her bed, and its not even worth a negligence charge.. Rickman told the AJC that calls to his office started the day after the shooting. She prohibited him from possessing weapons or consuming alcohol if released from jail. One other law enforcement official was fired for lying about the training. Rodolfo Rudy Cardenas; San Jose, California, 2004. Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press. So its hard to argue they cared much either, at least not enough to let the kids safety trump the safety of the officers, or the need to get into the home quickly to prevent any evidence from being destroyed so they can preserve their conviction. They ordered him not to put the car in reverse, but Ayers did so anyway and accelerated, making contact with an officer behind the car. | Harrison said he initially thought his partner was seriously injured or dead and he thought the car was going to hit him, too. Before he died, he was able to speak to his wife Ayers, who was white, had a reputation for being the type of Christian who didnt spend all of his time on a soap box preaching about sin and salvationhe actually put his money where his mouth was, became active in his community, and did things to help people. WebAfter Ayers tried to drive past the descending officers, Harrison shot and killed him. Accelyne Williams was no drug dealer. But Abigail Ayers' civil suit (PDF) calls that assessment into question. 3.1.2023 12:01 AM, 2022 Reason Foundation | In many cases, politicians (both Democrats and Republicans) are so afraid of being considered soft on drugs that they are reluctant to say anything critical of narcotics officers no matter how badly they screw up. Yet somehow he had been given a position on a narcotics task force, a position that not only gave him a gun but put him in volatile, high-stakes situations where he might be tempted to use it. (You can watch surveillance video of the altercation here.) Ayers, who had known Barrett for a number of years, offered her a ride back to the motel and gave her the money in his pocket, $23, to help pay her rent. Jesse Jackson to right-wing libertarians like Ron Paul, Walter Williams and 2012 Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnsonhave pointed out that the war on drugs has become much deadlier than the drugs themselves. Abigail Ayers then filed a civil lawsuit in March 2010, alleging gross and plain incompetence in the use of deadly force. Jonathan Ayers was a pastor at the Shoal Creek Baptist Church. He called the charges a self-defense case but didnt provide any further details. "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.". Rickman would tell a local paper that the investigations went to extraordinary lengths, and,I do not see how anybody could say the process was unfair based on the lengths that they went to.. In the end, Ayers was innocent, and a federal jury awarded his widow a $2 million settlement. Individuals arrested and charged in complaints are presumed innocent unless or until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in court. For three days in December, a grand jury was presented with the interviews and watched the video. A federal judge has awarded more than $800,000 in legal fees to the Hall County widow of a pastor fatally shot by law enforcement. The 18-person grand jury was provided with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations case file on the shooting, which contained more than 1,000 pages, as well as 26 compact discs of interviews, photos and 911 recordings. Ayers widow, Abigail, responded with a civil lawsuit seeking damages for gross and plain incompetence by both officers and their supervisors in March 2010. Grand jury clears officers in minister shooting, Officials claim law enforcement fatally shot pastor after he drove car in threatening way, SPONSORED: How to start a hiking, backpacking habit in 2022. They identified themselves as police officers, which civilian witnesses say happened. In September 2009, the young pastor Ayers was ministering to a young woman whom a Georgia drug task force was investigating on drug charges. Around 6:10am on May 16, 2003, officers executed a no-knock drug raid on Spruills apartment based on bad information they had received from an informant/alleged drug dealer. | He said the official explanation of what happened "flew in the face of credulity.". Narcotics officer Frank Baggett, Jr. said that when he kicked down the door to Dixons bedroom, he stumbledwhich caused his gun to go off and sent a bullet into Dixons chest. Had war on drugs supporters learned a lesson from Navarros death, it is quite possible that the killings of the Rev. It was a hot, late summer Georgia afternoon. The shooting in a convenience store parking lot, captured on video by a surveillance camera, has been the subject of an unrelenting debate that has, at times, been ugly in this northeast Georgia town of 9,000. Tragically, that cost Ayers his life when, on September 1, 2009, he gave a woman named Johanna Jones Barrett $23 to help her pay her rent. It ought to cast more doubt on the already dubious notion that police shootings should only be investigated by other police officers. Though I know they can't all be good. 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 Bible says an eye for an eye, one reader wrote the Toccoa Record. Ayers continued to drive, fleeing the parking lot for about a thousand yards before eventually crashing his car. When they approached to question him, Ayers reportedly tried to flee and his car struck one of the officers. Rickman, Terrell, and the other sheriff who oversees the task force were all reelected. Wilson, however, was in one of the bedrooms; when Chavalia fired shots into that bedroom, she was killed. Harris fired twice at the fleeing vehicle, grazing Ayers on the arm and striking him in the torso. "The community reaction has been mostly negative," said the Rev. Those were bad. No drugs were found in her house. Radley Balko is a senior editor at Reason magazine. In September 2009, Johnathan Ayers, a 28-year-old Baptist pastor from Lavonia, Ga., was gunned down by a North Georgia narcotics task force in the parking lot of a gas station. Ayers, attempting to leave the scene, was shot by Harrison. 8. Shes the widow of Jonathan Ayers, a Northeast Georgia pastor fatally shot by then-Stephens County Deputy Billy Shane Harrison in September 2009. Tuccille Learn how your comment data is processed. Select the best result to find their address, phone number, relatives, and public records. When Chavalia and other narcotics officers raided the house where Wilson was living, Terry was nowhere to be found. The defense said Harrison has only a $1 million insurance policy through Stephens County. They were in plain clothes. Shirley told CNN the drug task force unit comprises three Georgia counties -- Stephens, Habersham and Rabun. Posthumously, Navarro was proven innocent, and his senseless death underscored the need for the United States to seriously reform its misguided drug laws. The war on drugs is not only fought aggressively, it is fought carelessly and haphazardly, and a long list of innocent victims have been killed or maimed in the process. Jonathan Ayers; Toccoa, Georgia, 2009. 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 The grand jury hearing was the most one-sided miscarriage of justice that I have ever heard of. Worse, the man they pounced upon wasn't the target of their investigation. Sheriff's Employee Embezzled Funds in Keeping with the Spirit of Civil Asset Forfeiture, The Jones Act Is Driving Up Prices and Making Crises Worse, How SCOTUS Promoted Pernicious Myths About Sex Offender Registries. The woman the police were following. 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. But this same task force has a history. Associated Press articles: Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment at Fort Bragg, N.C., before reporting to the 173rd in July 2006. 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 September 2009, Johnathan Ayers, a 28-year-old Baptist pastor from Lavonia, Ga., was gunned down by a North Georgia narcotics task force in the parking lot of a gas station. Vous avez des problmes de TNT ? According to Joe Key, an expert on police shootings, the time between the car hitting Oxner and Harrison pulling the trigger was a quarter of a second. The initial civil complaint also states Harrison had not met the training requirements necessary to act as a peace officer, and was not acting in his scope of authority on the date of the shooting. They are no better than a domestic terrorist, because they dont care about families they didnt care about the family, the children living in that household to be selling dope out of it, to be selling methamphetamine out of it. A lawyer representing Ayers' widow told the Toccoa Record he was disappointed by the grand jury's decision and that a civil lawsuit would follow. Rickman was unavailable for comment Friday. The officers claim they spotted Ayers dropping off a woman they were investigating as detectives in a multi-county drug task force. Authorities say they found nothing illegal in Jonathan Ayers' car after he was slain during a drug sting. 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. So those fair investigations that went to extraordinary lengths failed to discover that the cop who shot Ayers not only had prior disciplinary problems, but also he wasnt even legally authorized to be a cop, much less carry a gun. Annie Rae Dixon, an 84-year-old African-American woman, was killed by a narcotics officer in Tyler, Texas on January 29, 1992. Web0:15. At the heart of this outrage, though, once again, is our increasingly demented, hysterical, all-too-literal drug war. Harrison was ordered to post a $2.9 million bond while his attorneys appeal this most recent judgment. In hostage situations, for example, a SWAT team can save lives. Mike Ayers, who was in charge of the investigation for the GBI, is not related to Jonathan Ayers. TOCCOA, Ga. (ABP) A grand jury has cleared police officers involved in a Sept. 1 shooting that killed a Southern Baptist pastor caught in the middle of a botched drug sting. Innocent civilians have more to fear from botched drug raids and careless police work than they do from drug dealers. 1, 2019 at 5:28 PM EDT. But Ayers had no way of knowing he wasnt being attacked by carjackers or gang members; in fact, the officers who killed him went out of their way to look as thuggish and intimidating as possible. In the burned toddler raid, Terrell told the paper thatDistrict Attorney Brian Rickman had already cleared the task force of any wrongdoing. The police-involved shooting He died four hours later at the local hospital of his gunshot wound. One of Harrison's two shots hit Ayers. Harrison fired shots, and one struck Ayers in the abdomen. All rights reserved. So did the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. WebIn February, I posted about a settlement in the death of Jonathan Ayers, an innocent pastor that this same drug task force killed in a drug operation in 2009. A concussion grenade was thrown into the apartment; Spruill, a city employee who was getting ready to leave for work, suffered a heart attack and died.

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