Posted on 09/04/2009 3:13:57 AM PDT by thecabal
Plainclothes officers shot and killed a small-town pastor when the 28-year-old father-to-be resisted efforts to question him about a passenger in his car who was the target of a drug sting, authorities said.
Jonathan Paul Ayers of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia wasn't targeted in the probe that ended in gunfire at a gas station Tuesday, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said. But drug task-force agents opened fire on him after he tried to avoid them, putting his car in reverse and striking one of the officers.
Bankhead said agents approached Ayers after he dropped a woman off at a store in downtown Toccoa, which is about 90 miles northeast of Atlanta. The passenger was the person being investigated by the task force.
A grainy surveillance video from a nearby store shows two drug task-force agents emerge from a black SUV before Ayers' small car backs up. The two men fire into the passenger side of Ayers' car, and then it takes off with the agents running behind it, the video posted on WNEG-TV in Toccoa shows. The station owner would not release the video to The Associated Press.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Unless there is some meaning of "plainclothes" I am unaware of, it appears not.
Man shot while fleeing suspected muggers.
Looks like a total menace to society! Good thing those brave officers are out there killing scum like this...
It is disturbing. This is what gives conscientious officers a bad name.
They were sent home with pay. Yippy skippy! At the least, this should cost them their careers.
Saw the video. Murder....
Also from the video, one of the agents is definiately limping after the Pastor's car backs up and wheels around.
I believe the pastor thought he was being robbed and tried to get away. The agents did not know that he was a pastor and thought he had backed over one of them in an attempt to flee and so opened fire.
RIP Pastor, God keep your soul and comfort your family, your wife and unborn child. What a horrible mistake and set of circumstances.
“If the viseo does show them firing before the car started to move these guys are toast..”
No their not... It’s acceptable, even for many here on FR, for cops to gun down anyone they want without consequence.
There is not one shred of evidence he was involved in drug activity much less had done ANYTHING illegal.
Seems to me that our country needs a secret society that welds out justice in cases like this, since our justice department is unable or unwilling to deal with it.
Yes, sadly, we do have our share of “I am the law” types.
http://wneg32.com/
Local NE GA TV station with more info. Haven’t had time to go thru all the articles yet.
I want to see these "Officers" arrested, go to trial and then spend the rest of their life behind bars.Any money they had coming to them should go to the widow and child of the murdered Pastor.
If you say “How ‘bout them DAWGS!” you are no longer considered a transplant. :-)
It's becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between the two.
How bout them DAWGS!
LOL !
I still love the Trojans!
Minister's death leaves grief, questions
Police said undercover officers with a northeast Georgia tri-county drug and prostitution task force followed Ayers to the gas station after he was seen dropping off a woman in town who had twice sold drugs to officers.
While the minister went inside to use the ATM, police said, the officers waited by the pumps in an unmarked black Cadillac Escalade. Once Ayers returned to his car, officers identified themselves and ordered him to open his door, police said. Ayers backed up and sped away while police shot at him twice, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. Ayers crashed a short distance away and died later following surgery at Stephens County Hospital in Toccoa.
The woman, whose name has not been released, was being held at the Stephens County Jail on charges of cocaine possession and distribution, Bankhead said.
Toccoa resident Joy Guadalupe said the community is confused about what happened. People dont know what to believe so theyre drawing their own conclusions, she said Saturday. If he didnt have anything to hide, then why did he run? Was he just spooked?
His best friend, Adam Gragg, said Ayers was known for helping people that others might shun as sinners because he believed they needed Jesus most.
He always went to bad places, and he didnt care what people thought about it, Graggs wife, Brittany, said.
Gragg said he knew Ayers for 10 years. Theres no way he could have been involved in anything illegal or lived a kind of secret life, and us not know about it.
Roger Shirley (no relation to the sheriff), head deacon and lifelong member at Shoal Creek, believes his pastor drove the 20 miles to Toccoa to buy tires for his wifes car, went to the ATM for cash to cover the purchase and was going to pick up his wife, who teaches at Stephens County High School. If he was with a woman, it was someone he was helping, Shirley said.
Questions:
1. Why would the LEOs who were waiting at the pumps for the pastor to come out of the busy Shell station watch him get into his car and THEN approach and ASK HIM TO GET OUT? This makes no sense on the face of it unless there is some scumbag loop-hole lawyer precedent that forces LEOs to do this for some reason. Maybe they can't conduct a car search unless it's done this way? Any cops out there who have a line on this sort of lawyer thing?
2. Why would the pastor drive his own car to pick up tires for his wife's car? This also makes no sense on the face of it. Most tire dealers put the tires on the car, balance them, etc. The explanation would be a little more plausible if the pastor had been driving his wife's car. Was this 20 mile ride the closest place to buy tires? (And BTW, didn't this pastor have a credit card?)
Officers fired upon him for simply running away, because he was in a vehicle with a girl who sold drugs? Being in a vehicle with a felon does not make one a felon, ergo he was not a fleeing felon. Seems like they're over-reaching on allowable use of firearms.
Well, no... read the story. He recklessly endangered officers on foot when he took off in his car.
Didn’t the officers endanger themselves? Plain clothes, jumping out of a vehicle, guns drawn?
This excerpt is from an article posted on the WNEG-TV website on Wednesday morning:
“An investigation is underway into the death of the pastor of a Lavonia church. Jonathan Ayers was shot by a member of the Stephens’ County Sheriff’s Office Tuesday afternoon and died later at Stephens County Hospital.”
“According to Stephens County Sheriff Randy Shirley, the Narcotics Unit of the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office was doing a drug buy at the Shell gas station at the corner of Broad and Currahee Streets.”
“Shirley says an officer shot the person involved in the drug transaction as the suspect fled the scene. The man then ran off the road and hit a tree.”
This next excerpt is from an article posted on the WNEG-TV website later that same day:
“Police are now saying that Jonathon Ayers was not the target of a drug investigation. That contradicts what WNEG was told by police on Tuesday.”
I wish the articles told us when it was learned that the incident had been recorded on video
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