Posted on 09/05/2009 7:35:34 AM PDT by bamahead
LAVONIA, Ga. (ABP) -- Members of a Southern Baptist church in Northeast Georgia want answers about the police-shooting death of their 29-year-old pastor in a drug-sting operation gone wrong.
Jonathan Ayers, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia, Ga., died during the night of Sept. 1, hours after being shot by undercover police officers outside a gas station where he had just gotten money from an ATM machine.
The Stephens County Sheriff's Office initially identified the shooting victim as a suspect involved in a drug transaction. Later officials clarified that drug enforcement agents were not investigating Ayers, but a woman who was riding in his car whom he had dropped off moments earlier.
Officials said the officers didn't know who Ayers was and wanted to talk to him. They were in plain clothes, but they claim they wore badges around their necks and identified themselves as police when they asked him to open his car door. Instead, they say, Ayers put the car in reverse and fled, striking one officer and causing minor injuries.
Police fired at the fleeing vehicle. One bullet struck Ayers in the abdomen. He managed to drive away but crashed about a half mile away. Police found him conscious and alert, but he died several hours later after surgery.
Police said after striking the officer, Ayers drove his car toward another officer in a "threatening manner." Friends and family believe Ayers thought the men were going to rob him and that he got scared and tried to run away.
Police have not identified the woman, who is charged with selling cocaine. Ayers' sister, Rebecca Floyd, said her younger brother was known to help strangers.
"I could bet my life on it that he did not know her," Floyd told television station WYFF News 4. "I could bet my life on it, because that's the kind of person he was. He was a good Christian man…. His goal was to lead souls to Christ."
Roger Shirley, a member of Shoal Creek, told the Anderson, S.C., Independent Mail that Ayers had led 18 people to Christ and baptized 12 in the little more than a year since he became pastor of the struggling congregation, founded in 1789. Shirley said he believed the pastor was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ayers had recently started a blog, where he described having "three loves in my life: Jesus Christ, my wife, Abby, and the Church." The couple's first baby is due in February.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating the shooting. The officers involved are on administrative leave with pay.
Ayers' brother-in-law, Matt Carpenter, told AccessNorthGa.com that the family was first informed Ayers died in a traffic accident, and then that he had been shot. Hours later, they learned he died in an officer-involved shooting.
A surveillance video shows Ayers calmly entering the store a few minutes before the shooting. A black Cadillac Escalade SUV pulls up next to a gas pump beside his car. A man jumps out before it comes to a complete stop. Ayers attempts to drive away, as officers chase after and fire shots at the car.
Ayers' funeral service is scheduled at 2 p.m., Friday, Sept. 4, at Shoal Creek Baptist Church.
In before the LOL.
I would lay good money that men with guns jumping out of an Escalade didn't have my best interests at heart.
Why didn't they pick up the woman when got out of the car?
Did they call in the car plates to see who was the driver?
Why wait for him to get in car?
“I suppose it is absurd to suggest that someone transporting a coke dealer and who goes to such links to evade capture might in fact be the guilty party”
Yet your logic is impeccable, the evidence that the pastor is guilty (he knew his passenger was a drug dealer and that the people confronting him were police, not armed assailants) is irrefutable.
“The pastor is just more collateral damage in the war on drugs.”
The most insidious part of the war on drugs is the transfer of assets to police agencies (cash is often confiscated with no charges filled), wonder where that Cadilac Escalade came from. Many police departments are beginning to behave like gangs and I sometimes wonder if all of the cop shows actually influence their behavior.
1)Since they had gone to the trouble of identifying the woman with the pastor as a "coke dealer", how much harder could it have been to identify a small town pastor when you have access to his vehicle's license tag number?
2)How did they know that he knew her to be a coke dealer?
Woe be it to our society when someone is held to account for the transgressions of any stranded motorist or hitchhiker they offer assistance to.
3)"Links" to evade capture?
So let me get this straight... If immediately after using an ATM, two guys in civilian clothes jump out of a vehicle that can best be described as the "thug vehicle of choice" and start running towards me with weapons drawn, I should hang around and submit to whatever they demand because they just MIGHT be cops?
Strange, but on nearly every thread of this nature, we are treated to a lecture by some bootlicker on how we should consider how cops, TRAINED cops, are required to make split second judgment calls in life or death situations. Now, a young, small town PREACHER who is completely oblivious to any danger is supposed to react in a split second to being surprised by multiple armed attackers without resorting to the "fight or flight" instinct?
Now we hold unarmed preachers to a higher standard than trained, armed police officers?
Amazing.
Why did the cops have to shoot him to get him to stop, when they could easily followed him and stopped him later with a marked cop car?
I disagree that the cop life was in danger after watching the video. This is a made-up excuse by the cop to justify your shooting the guy dead! And to save your a$$!
“IN fact, I doubt the cops had criminal intent here, they just made some bad choices. They probably did think they were in danger. Doesn’t excuse them, but it means they shouldn’t be put to death for their actions.”
First of all, Intent has nothing to do with it, just as it wouldn’t if you “made a mistake” and shot someone.
Second, I didn’t suggest anyone should be “put to death”.
It used to be that a police officer was an honorable profession.
These days, they're not far removed from the thugs they're supposed to be arresting.
New preacher.
A horrible mistake made possibly only through our futile and totally failing endeavor to keep people from getting high.
Wait until we have finished 4 yrs w/ Obama...or dare I say it, EIGHT???
But since he is a white male Christian, the media will look the other way.
Not true. Botched stings kill blacks as well in our useless war on drugs. That neither political party cares to end this war, despite increasingly losing support from Americans, is why there is poor media coverage and practically no debate in the matter. A couple of days from now this pastor's death will be forgotten and we'll be back to the normal business of legal home invasions, property seizures and murder in the failing effort of keeping a few Americans from getting high.
Sad. RIP.
Frankly, I don't see how Obama could make it any worse than it already is. If anything, I'd support wholeheartedly an effort of his administration to scale back the failing war on drugs, a move, I'm certain, that would receive great enthusiasm from his liberal base and howls of outrage on this forum.
Honestly, this could be the sole item of Obama's administration that I'd agree with if he had the nerve to tackle it.
made all the worse by the para-militarization of our police forces.
Good point.
I was wondering what he was doing there to begin with.”
IF the Pastor was dirty, it will definitely come out.
The law says citizens can NOT use deadly force unless it is imminent that they are going to die.Why should the law for cops be any different?Cops get away with killing people under circumstances that wouldn’t be allowed under the UCMJ for a soldier.
I have been bumped by a car, knocked down by a car, had my foot ran over, etc. and I knew the person driving was not trying to kill me.
You have a bunch of big, armed, plain clothed, ski mask wearing people running at you, your first instinct is to run or shoot (if you’re armed).
I can’t believe trained, psychologically tested?,officers of the law cannot tell the difference between an accident caused by fear and intent to kill.
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