jonathan ayers shooting
In my post on Ayers, I noted how little professional accountability there had been for the death of Jonathan Ayers. Shortly after he got back into his car, a black Escalade tore into the parking lot. In fact, the 75-year-old minister was a substance abuse counselor in Boston and had a long history of doing good work in that citys African-American community. Your email address will not be published. Its Legacy Is Disastrous. The police were trailing Barrett at the time. 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Rev. They pulled up behind him in an unmarked black SUV. Kathryn Johnston; Atlanta, Georgia, 2006. A grand jury on Friday found that an officer-involved shooting in which a Lavonia minister was killed was justified. He asked emergency personnel if he was going to make it and told his wife at the hospital to take care of herself and that he did nothing wrong. Had war on drugs supporters learned a lesson from Navarros death, it is quite possible that the killings of the Rev. When they approached to question him, Ayers reportedly tried to flee and his car struck one of the officers. Harrison and Oxner told investigators they saw a woman, Kayla Barrett, whom they planned to arrest later that day on drug charges get into Ayers' car and they saw him give her money. "I don't want someone on a task force or as a law enforcement officer who shoots first and asks questions later, and unfortunately, that's what we have here," Claytor told the AJC. The woman was later identified as someone Ayers had been ministering to, trying to convince her to get off of drugs and turn her life around. Ayers widow believes her husband thought he was being robbed and tried to get away. Want to share a story? Ayers widow, Abby 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. Pedro Oregon Navarro; Houston, Texas, 1998. 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. An undercover drug task force team had set up an operation at a local business, and had a woman under surveillance -- someone they had bought drugs from on two previous occasions, GBI spokesman John Bankhead told CNN Thursday. But a lot more shooting was done by the officers: a total of 39 shots were fired, several of which hit her. "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.". 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. Neither the family or Mrs. Ayers have embraced any of this, attorney Richard Hendrix said. ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A north Georgia pastor was shot to death by police when he struck an officer with his car after he was seen in a vehicle with a drug suspect, authorities told CNN. The Cache County Deputy Attorney Tony Baird said Barley was arrested by Cache County Sheriffs deputies after he allegedly shot at the group of teenagers. 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. A national expert on police shootings was consulted. Still, local law enforcement officials tried to smear him. Jonathan Andrew Barley was booked Saturday night GAINESVILLE, Ga. (ABP) Two north Georgia police officers have asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit against them for their use of deadly force in a 2009 shooting that claimed the life of a Baptist pastor. 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. 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 Marilyn Ayers was originally awarded $2.3 million in damages and expenses by a jury in February. 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." According to the originally filed civil complaint, Harrison later claimed he shot the victim because, at the time, he thought Ayers had killed one of his partners in the parking lot. He died four hours later at the local hospital of his gunshot wound. Privacy Policy | Franklin said in an interview with the AJC. Ayers maintained a blog, in which he wrote that he had three loves in life: "Jesus Christ, my wife Abby, and the Church.". Several people working at the hospital told GBI investigators that Ayers told them he didn't know who shot him. 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. But with the war on drugs, the concept of innocent until proven guilty has fallen by the wayside on countless occasions. 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. 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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. | WebWhen they broke in, Johnston (who lived alone in a high-crime area of the city and kept a gun in her house for protection) assumed she was being the victim of a home invasion and 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. No drugs were found in the house, and Bill Ankeny (El Montes assistant police chief) later acknowledged that there was never any evidence of the Paz family being involved in drug dealing. Apologists for the killing claimed that Mena (a Mexican immigrant) had a gun, and LeRoy Lemos (a community activist) responded: If police hadn't gotten the wrong house, Mena would be alive. The badges they had hanging from their necks, seen in this photo, were far from conspicuous. WebThe incident happened about 5:15 a.m. in a home near 1600 West and Center Street. Wilson, however, was in one of the bedrooms; when Chavalia fired shots into that bedroom, she was killed. In the courts view, it is unconscionable to ask that she wait whatever time is required for an appeal before she can collect her judgment without any assurance that the judgment will, in fact, be collectible.. Some say Ayers was obviously frightened by two men running to his car and he did not know they were police, though witnesses told the grand jury they heard Harrison and Oxner identify themselves. WebJonathan Ayers, 28-years-old, was a pastor at the Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Toccoa, Georgia. Judge OKs $832K in legal fees in preacher shooting case, Damages awarded to widow cut to $1.6 million, SPONSORED: How to start a hiking, backpacking habit in 2022. All rights reserved. The police found no illicit drugs in his car, and there was no trace of any illegal substance in his body. 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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. 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. In the process, he nicked one agent. Ayers likely had his windows up and his air conditioning on. When the grand jury exonerated Harrison and Oxner on Dec. 15, the controversy flared anew. 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. Ayers widow, Abigail, responded with a civil lawsuit seeking damages for gross and plain incompetence by both officers and their supervisors in March 2010. 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