Brickbat: Georgia Justice

Baptist preacher Jonathan Ayers had just got money from an ATM at a Toccoa, Georgia convenience store back in 2009 and gotten into his car when an SUV pulled up and men with guns drawn jumped out. Ayers tried to to pull away, but the men start firing at his car, killing him. The men, it turns out, were police officers, part of a multi-jurisdictional drug task force. They weren't wearing uniforms. Their vehicle wasn't marked. And Ayers only "crime" was visiting a woman they were keeping under surveillance. A federal jury has just awarded his widow $2.3 million in a civil rights suit.

Comments

[Matrix]

If you associate with drug dealers or users, you deserve to die! Fuck this guy and his family! Maybe the Sheriff's deputies need to visit his widow and family.

/Drug Warrior Dickhead

[Wasteland Wanderer]

A federal jury has just awarded his widow $2.3 million in a civil rights suit.

And the officers involved went to prison for murder, right? RIGHT?!

In December 2009, a grand jury decided the shooting was justified.

...goddamnit.

[Bill Dalasio]

Kind of captures my sentiment. Bastards kill an innocent man and the only consequence is the taxpayers wind up on the hook.

[Brian D]

I won't be around for the AM Links, so here.

MTGox.com shuts down.

[db]

Not surprising.

[db]

Law enforcement agents should be required to obtain and personally pay for at least $10 million liability insurance. All judgments against them should be paid out from this insurance, rather than the public purse.

They should be required to pay for it without pay raises. They will, of course, raise hell about it, claiming that their exorbitant salaries, ridiculously short service times to official retirement, and amazing benefits packages are needed to compensate for the risks to life and limb associated with their jobs. That's bullshit. Workers in heavy industry take more serious risks to their lives every day without a shadow of the compensation that LEOs enjoy.

[db]

And when the insurance companies stop providing it to bad actors, probably the government will step in to subsidize their premiums and "assure access" to abusers of police authority regardless of "pre-existing conditions."

[Brett L]

A man named Thomas Brandi was hit by a speeding police vehicle. A jury awarded him about $1M in settlement. As of this year The State of FL, who is responsible for all municipal liabilities over $200k, has still not authorized payment. IIRC, this is the fourth year that a relief act has been submitted.

A friend showed me three or four of these yesterday. So I hope the fact that it was a federal court victory gets the State of GA to pay out.

[Bill Dalasio]

So, even when the courts grant someone a semblance of justice, they still don't get justice. Honestly, I wish a judge would hold the Governor or whatever high official is responsible in contempt and order him frog-marched into prison. And do it some time in October of an election year.

[Fist of Etiquette]

One wonders if any of those cops feel they did anything wrong that day.

[db]

Good question. I would bet maybe one does, but if he.ever tried to.talk about it, the others would not want to hear it.

Transcripts of therapy sessions for.cops.involved.in this.sstuff should be phblic.re ord after 5 years or so, just.because.

[sarcasmic]

That's a joke, right?

[wareagle]

not a joke. DB hits very close to the target - the decent, honorable folks who do the job correctly will say nothing, covering for the baboons among them. And their silence will lead many to conclude that either the baboons outnumber the others or the others are not entirely sure that events like this are wrong.

[sarcasmic]

There are no decent, honorable folks among our police. If there were then they would do something about the baboons. The fact that the baboons do whatever they want without any consequence is proof that there are no good people among them.

None.

[wareagle]

sorry, I've known too many who are and who do things you would expect of LEOs. That said, the industry does not help itself as this incident and others like it demonstrate.

[sarcasmic]

All I expect of LEOs is violence when they are not immediately and unquestioningly obeyed.

[wareagle]

and I have become increasingly skeptical of them. It is disappointing.

Grew up in a small town where cops actually looked out for citizens.

[Bill Dalasio]

I tend to agree with you, but sarcasmic does have a point. If "normal" were good and decent police trying to do the right thing by their communities, it would be the baboons who had to hide in the shadows. But, it's not. As you suggest, it's the presumably good police who find they have to keep their mouths shut and go along to avoid trouble.

[Bryan C]

Ok. I'd like to think you're correct. But normal, honest people generally do something when a co-worker commits murder. Why do these good cops keep allowing their co-workers to abuse innocent people without saying something, or trying to stop them? Why don't they rise through the ranks and change the culture so that this doesn't happen anymore. Are they scared of their friends and colleagues, or just indifferent to dead citizens?

[sarcasmic]

Bryan C, all you questions have the same answer: because good cops do not exist.

[sarcasmic]

I'm sure that most cops think of themselves as good cops. But when posed with questions like "What would you do if one of your brothers was beating an innocent person?" they would be perplexed, because they would assume that the person being beaten deserved it. That's why when they see someone being beaten, they always join in the fun. I mean, that's what good cops do. They beat people who deserve a beating. And if the person dies as a result of the beating, oh well. They shouldn't have done whatever they did to deserve the beating.

[GILMORE]

STOP RESISTING!
(pepper sprays sarcasmic in the face and kneecaps him with billy club)

[Bill Dalasio]

"Are they scared of their friends and colleagues, or just indifferent to dead citizens?"

I think a lot could be explained by the former. They've got a fundamental conflict of interest in that regard. If they raise their hand and say something's wrong, what are they going to be able to expect? A medal, citation and a raise? Or to be treated like a pariah by their colleagues in a line of work where co-operation is extremely important.

Think about it this way. Officer A sees Officer Z beating the living crap out of a suspect and reports it. Officers W, X, and Y explain to the inquiry that Officer Z was perfectly well justified in his actions. Officer A just didn't understand "good policework" enough to understand. A couple of weeks later, Officer A goes out with Officer V and passes by some kid smoking a joint without arresting him. Officer A gets dismissed for being a "bad cop".

[shamalam]

I vaguely remember that one of the "officers" pulling the trigger that day had not yet been certified as an "officer" and was not legally allowed to carry, or fire a gun. He had not yet taken firearms training, or the psychology of dogs, or something.

Am I thinking of a different case?

[Almanian!]

WEll, this is a great way to start my day. Thanks, Reason!

Fuck you, police from whatever jurisdiction this is. Fucking fuckety fuck. What the FUCK?

[nailzer]

A little more information:

Suit says Ga. cop wasn't certified when he shot suspect

ATLANTA ? An undercover drug officer who shot and killed a minister in Toccoa in September was not a certified peace officer at the time, the minister's widow alleges in a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court.

The lawsuit, filed by Abigail Ayers, also claims Stephens County Deputy Billy Shane Harrison was not properly trained and the sheriff who assigned him to the joint Mountain Judicial Circuit Narcotics Criminal Investigation and Suppression Team should have known not to put him on the team.

http://www.policeone.com/legal.....t-suspect/

[mr lizard]

You know who else liked to shoot without certification?

[Harvard]

John Holmes?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Max Hardcore?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Yeah, all that training is what keeps them from unloading their weapons into the first person you see. Without the training, they have no idea how to conduct themselves.

[JW]

A federal jury has just awarded his widow $2.3 million in a civil rights suit.

The Baboon Troop won't be pleased.

It was a righteous shoot!

[JW]

In December 2009, a grand jury decided the shooting was justified.

I'm going to way out on a limb here and suggest that, having nothing but state officials preside over proceedings involving actions of state malfeasance, this ruling is just a MASSIVE coincidence.

[Suthenboy]

There is a lot of information missing from this story.

Still, one only has to think about what actions the DA's office would have taken had the shooter not been an LEO. I feel confident that under those conditions a murder conviction would have been easy to obtain.

[Seamus]

In December 2009, a grand jury decided the shooting was justified.

How is that even possible. I presume that Georgia has the same rules about use of deadly force in self-defense or defense of others, which is that deadly force is only justifiable if the person sincerely and reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to the person or to another. Even though George Zimmerman was having his head smashed into a concrete pavement before he shot Trayvon Martin, people were baying for his head, claiming there was no way the use of deadly force in self defense was justified. In this case, however, where the only risk the police faced was that they'd get brushed by Ayers' car as he was trying to get his ass out of what looked to him like an attack by thugs, everyone goes ho-hum. (By my lights, if Ayers had aimed his car at a pig or two, *that* would have qualified for justifiable use of deadly force.) You'd think the rules were different for cops or something.

[sarcasmic]

You don't have to aim your car at the cops to justify deadly force. All you have to do is fail to obey a command while in the drivers seat.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Or be a suitable excuse for their poor decisions

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/st.....id=9441539

[Wasteland Wanderer]

(By my lights, if Ayers had aimed his car at a pig or two, *that* would have qualified for justifiable use of deadly force.)

Only if they had identified themselves. Since they were in street clothes and in unmarked cars, its questionable whether or not they did, and its also still questionable whether or not even if they did shout "police" and show their badges if that really counts as identification, as any asshole can buy a fake badge off the internet and call themselves cops.

Anyone being ambushed by a bunch of plain-clothed thugs with guns after just having hit up the ATM is going to think "robbery", not police, and fleeing and/or defending themselves with potentially deadly force are both expected and totally justified reactions.

[JD the elder]

By my lights, if Ayers had aimed his car at a pig or two, *that* would have qualified for justifiable use of deadly force.

I'm surprised they didn't just claim that anyway; that's what the NYPD does. "His car was a weapon! He was pointing it right at us!" It gives them a great excuse for shooting an unarmed person and is awfully hard to disprove.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Nobody expects the New Professionalism!

[RishJoMo]

Man that makes a lot of sense dude.
http://www.Anon-VPN.com

[Paul.]

Cops still on the job continuing their good works, I presume. Must be nice to buy your way out of murder.