The officers claim they spotted Ayers dropping off a woman they were investigating as detectives in a multi-county drug task force. 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. The family of Jonathan Ayers has also filed a lawsuit against the police agency that killed him. 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. Here's some tips, Column: Cherish your memories while you have them, Column: The journey to Athens used to be a five-hour railcar ride, Column: Buttering up guests with fresh biscuits, Local practice offers expert medical care, GoToHearing provides professional, caring service, Have guests in town? Copyright 2010 - 2023 CacheValleyDaily.com LLC, all rights reserved. ------------------------------------------. Police said they later observed a white male in a red Honda Civic give the woman money. Ayers lost control of his car not far away. Harrison was serving on the Mountain Judicial Circuit Narcotics Criminal Investigation and Suppression Team. No drugs were found in her house. Watch surveillance video of Ayers' car hitting officer . WebAfter Ayers tried to drive past the descending officers, Harrison shot and killed him. Three officers, all undercover, got out of the vehicle and pointed their guns at Ayers. 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. Had the narcotics officers who confronted Ayers been wearing uniforms that made them easily recognizable as cops, its possible that he would not have fled and would still be alive today. "The community reaction has been mostly negative," said the Rev. "You may escape justice in this life but you will never escape the final judgment and eternal damnation for your actions! 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. WebThe 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 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. Still, many residents are unconvinced. 6. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. Accelyne Williams was no drug dealer. The officers were undercover, dressed in shabby clothes and ski-mask caps. 3.1.2023 12:30 AM, Jacob Sullum He died four hours later at the local hospital of his gunshot wound. Vous avez des problmes de TNT ? Had war on drugs supporters learned a lesson from Navarros death, it is quite possible that the killings of the Rev. They first said he was part of their drug investigation all along, then retracted. Parlez-en ! Posthumously, Navarro was proven innocent, and his senseless death underscored the need for the United States to seriously reform its misguided drug laws. Rodolfo Rudy Cardenas; San Jose, California, 2004. Rumors continue to feed the fire. Barley was arraigned virtually before a judge in 1st District Court, appearing by web conference from jail Monday afternoon. Many people from across the political spectrumfrom the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the National Urban League and the Rev. Rickman also cleared the cops in the Ayers case. 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. Enter your email below to start! 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 Police would later acknowledge he was not using or trafficking in illicit drugs. 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. Other members . ", The incident was caught on the gas station's surveillance camera. 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. WebJonathan Ayers We found 100+ records for Jonathan Ayers in MD, WV and 32 other states. Another then opened fire, WebThe incident happened about 5:15 a.m. in a home near 1600 West and Center Street. The grand jury also heard from Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter and former Stephens County District Attorney Mike Crawford. "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.". The same Mountain Judicial Circuit Narcotics Criminal Investigation and Suppression Team involved in the death of Jonathan Ayers did conduct the alleged drug buy and investigation before last weeks raid. 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. The Rev. WebAyers, attempting to leave the scene, was shot by Harrison. 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. But this same task force has a history. 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. Holder acknowledged that too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no truly good law enforcement reason, and he pointed out that according to one report, black males convicted in drug cases typically receive sentences that are 20% longer than the sentences imposed on white males for similar offenses. And using a SWAT team to go after a small-time drug dealer is bad police work. Michael Walker, the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement officer who fired the fatal shot, was charged with voluntary manslaughter but was acquitted by a San Jose jury in 2005. (She had allegedly sold an undercover officer $50 worth of cocaine.) Ayers crashed his car, was taken to a hospital and died hours later in surgery. A national expert on police shootings was consulted. More astonishing, Harrison apparently had no training at all in the use of lethal force. Mario Paz; El Monte, California, 1999. One of the people he had been helping was a woman who had a history of problems. Her lawsuit claims that the officers decision to wait until he returned to his car and then - in video captured on a surveillance camera - speed to a stop beside him and jump out of a black SUV wearing plain clothes with weapons drawn would cause a reasonable person to assume they were not police but criminals. District Attorney Brian Rickman enlisted a special prosecutor to review the case file before turning it over to a grand jury. Franklin said in an interview with the AJC. The pastor, understandably, attempted to escape. "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. 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 Rev. And all three of them pled guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to violate her civil rights. One of the bullets reportedly grazed one of the victims. Officers claimed Navarro had a gun and fired at them, but ballistics tests proved that all 30 shots were fired by the officers. 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. Though I know they can't all be good. And not too many cases were it's obvious the shooting was bad or even unnecessary. Shes the widow of Jonathan Ayers, a Northeast Georgia pastor fatally shot by then-Stephens County Deputy Billy Shane Harrison in September 2009. But in the drug war, the combination of SWAT teams, no-knock raids and sloppy police work can have deadly consequences for innocent people. 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. Abigail Marilyn Ayers was originally awarded $2.3 million in damages and expenses by a jury in February. No illegal drugs were found in Navarros home, and blood tests conducted after his death showed no traces of any illegal drugs in his system. Both units serve Habersham County and are under the jurisdiction of Sheriff Joey Terrel and DA Brian Rickman. He suspects they are private detectives. 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. 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. WebOne man is dead and a second person was sent to the hospital after a shooting in Treme on Tuesday, Oct. 12. Radley Balko 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 Stephens County, Georgia Sheriff's Department initially said Ayers was a drug suspect, but later had to retract. The Rev. The woman who was in the car with Ayers was taken into custody and faces drug charges, Bankhead said. In a civil suit, Johnstons family was awarded a $490,000 settlement. @w_katz1 Anyway, they do indeed go on and on. A Stephens County grand jury decided that narcotics officers Billy Shane Harrison and Kyle Bryant were justified in shooting Jonathan Ayers, 28, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia, Ga., in a botched drug arrest on Sept. 1, 2009. Below are 10 innocent victims who became collateral damage and lost their lives in the war on drugs (there are many, many more). 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. The wasteful use of public resources to pursue a petty drug offender and the aggressive and short-sighted apprehension of Jonathan Ayers that led to his death are bad enough. Harrison was ordered to post a $2.9 million bond while his attorneys appeal this most recent judgment. He wasnt authorized to make arrests or to carry a gun. 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WebCNN video shows Pastor Jonathan Ayers' final moments. A jury awarded Abigail Ayers $2.3 million, but a judge reduced the amount to $1.64 million after reassessing lost wages. 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.. "And later he ran off the road. And while Johnston was lying on the floor dying, Smith handcuffed her. Want to share a story? He said the panel that convened this week was charged with deciding only whether the case should go to a separate grand jury for possible criminal prosecution. Jonathan Ayers; Toccoa, Georgia, 2009. But in the case of 57-year-old Harlem resident Alberta Spruill, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg admitted: Clearly, the police made a mistake.. 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. 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. 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. Some contend Ayers was running because he didn't want the police to expose a secret part of his life: Barrett told investigators that she and Ayers had been having an affair for years. On January 4, 2008, narcotics officer Joseph Chavalia shot and killed 26-year-old Tarika Wilson in Lima, Ohio. According to a report of the proceedings on Rickman's website, the Stephens County district attorney, whose office overseas the drug task force, explained to grand jurors his consideration of legal and ethical obligations to remain the chief prosecuting officer in the case, including consultation with members of Ayers' family. Ayers told hospital staff was that he thought he was being robbed. 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. The Bible says an eye for an eye, one reader wrote the Toccoa Record. Stroberg has been critical of how the case was presented to the grand jury. Abigail Ayers' civil suit also alleges prior disciplinary problems with both officers Oxner and Harrison, including alleged drug use. And a Plains teen girl borrowed Jimmy Carters clothes. A man shot another family member, an adult, whom he mistakenly believed was a burglar, The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) is looking into the shooting. Ayers left behind a wife, Abigail, who at the time of his death was pregnant with her first child. So maybe we should take Rickmans quick assessment of this weeks raid with a grain of salt. Drug task force that killed an innocent pastor in 2009 also involved in burned toddler story*, For Ovechkin in winter, a deadline sell-off makes sense this spring, Commanders cut Carson Wentz and Bobby McCain, clearing cap space, The NFL deserves every bit of its raging Daniel Snyder headache, burned a toddler with a flashbang grenade. Webofficial athlete of dream different sports and life & basketball brand Report this post Shooting "Concerning the actions of the officers involved in the death of Jonathan Ayers on Sept. 1, 2009, we find that the use of deadly force by Agent Billy Shane Harrison was legally justified based upon his objectively reasonable belief that such use of force was necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or others," a statement signed by the grand jurors read. They followed him to a gas station where he stopped to withdraw money from an ATM machine. 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