Many people from across the political spectrumfrom the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the National Urban League and the Rev. 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. When task force members saw Ayers alone in the car with the woman, they switched their focus to him. According to Ayerss lawsuit, the woman was about to be evicted from the motel at which she was staying. In the process, he nicked one agent. 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.. By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism. "They approached the vehicle. Until we're ready to dispense with the notion that gun-toting cops in ski masks going commando at a public gas station is an appropriate response to an alleged $50 drug transaction, we're going to see a lot more Jonathan Ayerses. Back in the 1980s, Beltrn had lived next door to the Paz familyand at one point, they agreed to let Beltrn receive mail in their home. 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. Ayers' sister did not return a call from CNN Thursday. No drugs were found in her house. Harrison was serving on the Mountain Judicial Circuit Narcotics Criminal Investigation and Suppression Team. Smith and Junnier both pled guilty to charges of voluntary manslaughter; Smith also pled guilty to perjury and admitted he planted the marijuana in Johnstons house. Rickman also cleared the cops in the Ayers case. Despite the fact that Harrison had killed a man suspected of no crime months earlier without having undergone lethal-force training and certification, the officer was still carrying his badge and gun up until the time of the WSBTV report. "And later he ran off the road. WebOne man is dead and a second person was sent to the hospital after a shooting in Treme on Tuesday, Oct. 12. Harrison said he is expecting a lawsuit. Still, many residents are unconvinced. "The unfortunate thing for me is people who claim to be forgiven by God are unwilling to forgive others," Franklin said. So did the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The complaint alleges that Officer Harrison, the cop who shot Ayers, wasn't even authorized to arrest him. The undercover officers wanted to question Ayers about what they had just seen, he said. 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. @w_katz1 Anyway, they do indeed go on and on. Three officers, all undercover, got out of the vehicle and pointed their guns at Ayers. 1, 2019 at 5:28 PM EDT. | The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) is looking into the shooting. He could face up to 15 year in prison, if convicted. The headline of this post has been changed to reflect the distinction.). These allegations have since been confirmed by local TV station WSBTV and, after the fact, by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Ayers Ayers widow, Abigail, responded with a civil lawsuit seeking damages for gross and plain incompetence by both officers and their supervisors in March 2010. These officers jumped from an SUV waving their guns commando-style over a possible $50 drug transaction. 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. Abigail Ayers then filed a civil lawsuit in March 2010, alleging gross and plain incompetence in the use of deadly force. "People are so ramped up and emotional," Mike Ayers of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told the AJC. 2023 Baptist News Global. The officers saw the woman in a car with Ayers and saw what they believed was a drug transaction, Bankhead said. WebThe Springville Police Department announced Monday that Jonathan Hamilton was the man killed in Springvilles fourth fatal shooting of the past month. "They will suffer the consequences.". 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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 Cache County Deputy Attorney Tony Baird said Barley was arrested by Cache County Sheriffs deputies after he allegedly shot at the group of teenagers. Williams suffered a heart attack and died. Roland Stroberg, the attorney representing Ayers widow, said the family was "extremely disappointed," and that a lawsuit would be forthcoming. WebHe was one of the agents with the Mountain Judicial Circuit N.C.I.S. After causing Spruills death, the officers realized that they had just killed an innocent person. Police said three drug agents tried to block Ayers car after he dropped off a woman known to have been involved in illegal drug transactions. He shouldn't have been killed," Turpin told the AJC. WebJonathan was shot by police in 2009. For example, Claytor said, the first media reports said Ayers was involved in the drug trade. The case reads the defendant is effectively insolvent even before any judgment, and a judgment over $1 million plainly will render him insolvent., As (the) plaintiff points out, she suffered her loss nearly five years ago and has been in litigation over four years, the case reads. Jonathan Ayers, pastor at Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia, Georgia, died after the incident Tuesday afternoon in the nearby town of Toccoa, Georgia, police said. 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. 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. WebThe incident happened about 5:15 a.m. in a home near 1600 West and Center Street. 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. 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. And even today, police acknowledge he was not using or trafficking in illicit drugs. 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. 8. Ayers widow, Abby One of the most disturbing examples of "collateral damage" in the war on drugs was that of the Rev. Privacy Policy | 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. Stephens County sheriff Randy Shirley has placed both officers involved in the incident on paid administrative leave, he said. Accessibility | Joe Lancaster Ayers lost control of his car not far away. (You can watch surveillance video of the altercation here.) The Bible says an eye for an eye, one reader wrote the Toccoa Record. | "He was an unarmed man. He put his car in reverse and attempted to escape. Heres when your childs school will get one. 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. 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. At the heart of this outrage, though, once again, is our increasingly demented, hysterical, all-too-literal drug war. Pedro Oregon Navarro; Houston, Texas, 1998. WebJonathan Ayers, 28-years-old, was a pastor at the Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Toccoa, Georgia. Stephens County District Attorney Brian Rickman and Assistant District Attorney Rick Bridgeman presented the case. Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press. Ayers was shot in the liver and later died in a hospital operating room. "If an unmarked Escalade truck pulled up where I was and two guys dressed like drug dealers jumped out with guns drawn and approached me, I don't think I would wait around one second to find out who they were or what their motives were," one person wrote in a letter to the Toccoa Record. But the task force also serves two other counties, and so is also overseen by the sheriffs of those counties. The police found no illicit drugs in his car, and there was no trace of any illegal substance in his body. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Radley Balko 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. Abigail Marilyn Ayers was originally awarded $2.3 million in damages and expenses by a jury in February. But Abigail Ayers' civil suit (PDF) calls that assessment into question. 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.. (WVUE/Raycom) NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - A man that was killed in the 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. He shot the 28-year-old Ayers in the parking lot of a Toccoa convenience store when the victim accidentally walked into an undercover drug investigation. Jonathan Ayers, 28, was shot Sept. 1, 2009, in Last 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. From the moment the 28-year-old Lavonia Shoal Creek Baptist Church minister was shot, the rumors began. The suit has since meandered through a series of 208 motions, depositions and other court filings. One of the bullets reportedly grazed one of the victims. In a democratic republic, civilians are not executed in paramilitary-like raids based on guilt by association. Ayers left behind a wife, Abigail, who at the time of his death was pregnant with her first child. 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. According to a 1,100-page Georgia Bureau of Investigation report made public after the Dec. 15-18 grand jury probe, undercover officers were in the process of purchasing crack cocaine from a known drug user in hopes of identifying her supplier. 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. Best Match Powered by Whitepages Premium AGE 50s Jonathan Troy Ayers Glen Burnie, MD Aliases Jonathan Troy Ayres View Full Report Addresses Woodside Ter, Glen Burnie, MD He wasnt authorized to make arrests or to carry a gun. 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. And using a SWAT team to go after a small-time drug dealer is bad police work. From there he was taken to a hospital where he later died from massive blood loss. Shirley told CNN the drug task force unit comprises three Georgia counties -- Stephens, Habersham and Rabun. Mike Franklin with The Torch, the Church of God located in Demorest, Ga., knows Harrison and Oxner and also knew Ayers. Cardenas, clearly, found himself in the same position as Ayers: he was violently confronted by police officers he didnt know were police; he ran for his life and was shot dead. Drug Team involved in the September 2009 incident at a Toccoa gas station in which the Rev. But this same task force has a history. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Radley Balko is a journalist at The Washington Post. 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. 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. Had war on drugs supporters learned a lesson from Navarros death, it is quite possible that the killings of the Rev. Ayers widow believes her husband thought he was being robbed and tried to get away. So in other words, El Monte officers conducted a commando-style raid on the Paz home based on the fact that a drug suspect (who was out on bail and hadnt been convicted) had received some mail in their home during the previous decade. Franklin said Ayers touched a lot of people and that makes it hard for some to accept that he may have had a relationship with Barrett. Spotting the vehicle parked outside a gas station and recognizing Ayers as the man they had seen earlier, officers rushed to question him, blocking him in as he started to back out of a parking space. "How does a young man, who does so many wonderful things, have a dark side that wound up getting him killed?" 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. No one was disciplined for the actual killing of Ayers. Ayers lawyers declined to comment; a call to a lawyer representing Harrison was not returned. In the process, he nicked one agent. Neither the family or Mrs. Ayers have embraced any of this, attorney Richard Hendrix said. They followed him to a gas station where he stopped to withdraw money from an ATM machine. The badges they had hanging from their necks, seen in this photo, were far from conspicuous. "The vigilantes will get their justice, hopefully, in civil court. Ayers, attempting to leave the scene, was shot by Harrison. 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