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Tag: Jonathan Ayers

  • Racial progress, nicer white people, and black-on-black crime (Or: Why don’t white people care about justice?)

    There is a great interview with Chris Rock in New York Magazine. What stuck with me was his insight that “black progress” is a misnomer. What America has seen over the years (in fits and starts) is “white progress”:

    So, to say Obama is [black] progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.” It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t.

    The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.

    This got me thinking about the common refrain (at least among some people) that blacks don’t care about black-on-black crime. Just because you (and some in the media) keep saying so doesn’t make it true. In fact, the idea that black people don’t care about crime (and its corollary that blacks only care injustice at the hands of police) is so demonstrably false it’s almost absurd to even point out instances of blacks caring about black-on-black crime.

    But I will.

    As this link points out, “You may not have noticed black protests against crime, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t happened.” And even better this and this, which shows specific incidents of protest in Chicago, Harlem, Newark, Saginaw, Gary, and Brooklyn. I’ll also add Baltimore. Coates concludes:

    There is a kind of sincere black person who really would like to see even more outrage about violence in black communities. I don’t think outrage will do it at this point, but I respect the sincere feeling.

    And then there are pundits who write more than they read, and talk more than they listen, and prefer an easy creationism to a Google search.

    Now there is a caveat. People care less, as is reasonable, when one criminal kills another criminal than when an innocent person is killed. But there are plenty of killings to cover all the bases.

    And this is worth watching, this, if you haven’t already:

    (And no, that woman does not have flowers growing out of her head. She’s just standing in front of it.)

    In dealing with black-on-black crime, society has a system to deal with criminals. You kill somebody and (at least in theory) you get found, arrested, tried, convicted, and jailed. That is our justice system at work. It may not be the system, but it’s the system we have.

    But things are different when killings are sanctioned by the state. That’s why so many opponents of the death penalty focus on the fact that we sometimes execute innocent people. Do you think it’s never happened… or does it just not bother you?

    So people are upset about crime. But they’re also upset about justice. The Rodney King riots didn’t happen just because Rodney King got his ass beat. The riots started when the police officers got away with it (at least at first). The protests are about the whole damn system being rigged. Of course people were upset when Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. But the real outrage was that Zimmerman got away with it. Justice shouldn’t be something only Al Sharpton shouts about. It’s a basic American value. Especially, I should add, to a group to which it has been historically denied. (And how did conservatives get away with co-opting “freedom” and liberals with co-opting “justice”? It makes no sense.)

    When police officers get away with murder, it’s not only about crime. It’s about justice. Police officers are backed by the state. Police are the law. So yes, it is worse when a police officer kills an innocent person. (And notice I said “innocent” and not “unarmed.”)

    You could ask — especially if you think black people don’t care about crime — why don’t white people care about justice? Where was the uproar over the police-involved killing (and judicial exoneration) of the Reverend Jonathan Ayers? And there are countless other questionable police-involved shootings. And I don’t mean “countless” figuratively as in “a lot”. I mean “countless” literally as in we don’t count them! What’s up with that?!

    All this said, I do think it’s a shame that the whole Ferguson uproar seems to involve an incident in which a police officer probably acted correctly. Especially since there are any number of cases to pick from in which police have killed an innocent person. I also think people are misguided when they see bad police-involved shootings only in terms of race. I also know people are simply ignorant if they actually believe that police don’t shoot unarmed white people (or give them tickets for seatbelt violations)!

    But everybody is upset about crime. Why don’t white people care about justice?

  • D.A. Rickman on Jonathan Ayers

    I received the following email today from D.A. Brian Rickman in regards to this poston the 2009 killing of Rev. Jonathan Ayers (you can read all I’ve written about the horrible killing of Ayers).

    Professor Moskos,

    Someone sent me a link to the February article you posted regarding the Ayers case. There were a couple of things I wanted to mention. I don’t make a huge habit of responding to many articles or blogs, but I feel like I should as some of what you wrote is important to the integrity of the system.

    In our criminal review of the GBI file, and subsequent Grand Jury presentation, two outside prosecutors were brought in to also review the investigation, and appear at the Grand Jury proceedings to offer their opinions of the law and evidence. These two outside prosecutors were District Attorney Danny Porter of Gwinnett County, GA, and District Attorney Emeritus Mike Crawford, who was my predecessor in office. In addition, an outside use of force expert was brought in from another State. Both prosecutors appeared before the Grand Jury, and did so outside of the presence of myself or members of my office staff.

    There are many aspects of the tragedy that was the Ayers case that lend themselves to a healthy discuss ion in a democracy about the use of force and about law enforcement without question. My particular job, pursuant to my oath, was to ensure a fair review was had for violations of the criminal law in Georgia, which is of course different from the standard in a civil action for damages.

    I take my job, and my responsibilities very seriously. While it is not possible for there to be universal agreement about what we do or how we do it, I did want to mention these facts, which were not in the article, because they go to the heart of whether the process was fair insofar as the criminal review. As it appears from your writing, I was the only prosecutor involved in the proceedings. As mentioned above, two outside prosecutors conducted legal analysis and appeared aside from myself or anyone from my office. I do think that was important for the very reason that those steps were taken, that is to ensure a multiple level and independent review as far as the criminal process.

    I appreciate your time. I am not asking for, nor urging you to write any sort of correction or make any sort of posting. It is simply important to me that when a writing goes to my integrity, I respond to it.

    Thanks.

    Brian M. Rickman

    District Attorney

    Mountain Judicial Circuit

    P.O. Box 2138

    Clarkesville, Georgia 30523

  • Civil trial in shooting of Jonathan Ayers begins

    Remember Jonathan Ayers? Probably not. But you should. In 2009 he was an shot dead by police in what was one of the worst police-involved shooting in American history. Seriously.

    It didn’t become a national scandal.

    It wasn’t even big news.

    But there was so much wrong. So much police did wrong — tactically and morally — it’s hard to get one’s head around how messed up this shooting was. It should be a case study of what not to as a police officers.

    To refresh your memory, Reverend Ayers was driving along and picked up Kayla Barrett. Barrett was a drug addict Ayers had known for years through his priestly duties. This time Barrett was being watched by undercover police. Ayers said some nice words and gave her “all the money he had on him“: $23. 

    Ayers then went to buy gas (probably with a credit card), and after paying inside, got back in his car. At this point he was bum-rushed by mean looking men with guns. Ayers had no idea they were cops. Nor did bystanders also said they thought they were witnessing a robbery. Ayers tried to drive away from his attackers and in doing so backed his car up into deputy, Chance Oxner, who, like a fool, put himself into a position where a car could back up into him. After Ayers starting going forward and driving away, shots were fired at Ayers car. Ayers was shot and killed by a police officer. The officer who killed Ayers was not certified to carry a gun. According to the paramedic who treated Ayers, Ayers asked, “Who shot me?”

    Brian Rickman, the district attorney, failed to convince a grand jury to bring charges against any of the officers involved. Rickman may have not been trying to hard as he was close friends (like pallbearer close) with the unit’s commanding officer, Kyle Bryan.

    [Distraction: Police first tried to justify the shooting by discrediting Ayers. Police threatened to arrest Barrett if she didn’t admit she was having an affair with Ayers. Barrett first told police what they wanted to hear, but then quite convincingly recanted:

    “I’m an addict,” 26-year-old Kayla Barrett admitted Tuesday, saying that Ayers was ministering to her on the day of his death. “I’ve known him awhile – about six or seven years,” she said, calling him “a pastor and a friend.” She said that, over time, Ayers had been lecturing her and trying to get her to straighten out her life and to get off drugs. “I’ve been doing drugs for nine years,” Barrett said, noting that she is addicted to cocaine – “crack, basically.”

    …

    Barrett said she asked Ayers if he could help her out with the back rent, and that he gave “all the money he had on him” – $23. “His last words to me were I didn’t owe him anything,” Barrett said. “Probably 15-20 minutes after that I could hear the shots.” Responding to allegations she has heard, she said, “No, we did not have sex – I’m not capable,” referring to her Aug. 22 miscarriage.

    “He [Ayers] doesn’t have any part in any kind of drug activity,” Barrett insisted. “He’s never solicited me for prostitution. I don’t do that.” “I’ve never been charged with prostitution,” she said. Barrett said Ayers knew her fiancé and stopped to talk to him or her whenever and wherever he saw them and that he had stopped by the motel in the past. “He had been by there before,” she said. “He knew my fiancé also. I didn’t see him very much – about every two months.”

    The issue of their relationship is irrelevant to the shooting, but I do think it’s worth pointing out that Ayers was actually a priest doing priestly good. Police eventually admitted that Ayers was not doing anything illegal and was never part of their investigation. Absurdly, Harrison later testified that Ayers was free to leave if he did not wish to respond to questions when police approached his car. Anyway…]

    As I previously wrote:

    It’s the totality of the situation that bothers me. It’s not just that they were shooting at a car driving away (though that bothers me too). It’s everything. It’s choosing this location to stop and question the man. It’s using plainclothes officers to do so. It’s coming with gun drawn. It’s putting yourself behind a car that just might want to get away. These are all bad choices. Had the police just make one good choice, none of this would have happened.

    I blame the officers for the bad choices they made: 1) approaching Ayers armed, 2) approaching in plain clothes, 3) not making in clear they were police, 4) approaching Ayers when he was in his car and yet 5) not doing a normal car stop, 6) placing themselves in harm’s way behind the car, and 7) shooting at a car driving away (in a gas station, no less).

    Hey, we all make mistakes. And I’ll always give police the benefit of the doubt. But when you make that many mistakes and you end up killing an innocent man, I think you should be punished.

    and:

    Turns out that Billy Shane Harrison, the officer who killed Ayers, didn’t (and doesn’t) actually have police powers. He let his firearm training lapse. Oops (and from TV news).

    Maybe if this drug officer had had proper training, oh, I don’t know, he could have figured a better tactical way of stopping an innocent man for questioning without causing a situation where a good man gets killed while trying to get away from armed men he didn’t know were police!

    Now we don’t need to get into another debate about the shooting. But all you fools (I mean folks) who think this killing was somehow justified, ask yourself this: Can you imagine any police-involved shooting that isn’t justified? (short of cold-blood premeditated murder–which this was not.)

    It’s one thing to say, “Cops sometimes make mistakes. And sometimes a whole bunch of dumb-ass mistakes. And sometimes they comes together and, well, sorry. But mistakes aren’t crimes and we always need to give police the benefit of the doubt.” OK, fair enough. But if you go beyond that and think that all police-involved shootings are justified, then why even have this discussion?

    Well now, a civil trial has begun, four-and-a-half years later.

    There are a lot of names here and it’s confusing because they’re all tied together, but that’s part of the tragedy. Here’s the cast of characters (and do correct me if I’m wrong).

    Jonathan Ayers (killed) was shot by Billy Shane Harrison. Who may have not been certifiedunder Georgia law to carry a weapon at the time. Brian Rickman was the district attorney and friend of Kyle Bryant (who has since died of natural causes). Bryant was the commander of the drug task force that included Harrison and Oxner.

    Lt. Edwin Wilson was a training officer who said he had trained Harrison, but didn’t. Wilson was appointed by Sheriff Randy Shirley. Shirley, who has been reelected, later fired Wilson after Wilson was arrested and charged with a felony for lying about Harrison’s firearm training.

    I’m going to quote hotrod’s (slightly edited) comment from a previous post. And many thanks to hotrod for this update, or else I would not have know the latest.

    This case is still, in my mind, the gold standard for a buffonery-driven police-involved shooting. The three cops did NOTHING right. When they were left with a body on the ground (actually a surgical ward), the whitewash began.

    As others have noted, everything was driven by the totality of circumstances. And to take a hard look (not necessarily a criminal charge) at the totality of circumstances, you have to take a very hard look at Kyle Bryant, the commander of the alphabet soup task force and THE DRIVER OF THE SUV that tried to box in Ayers.

    Kyle Bryant was hired in mid-2009. Brian Rickman, the local DA, said in referring to Bryant – “I put my reputation on this – (he’s) as good as you will ever find.” (That was in the Clayton (GA) Tribune o/a April 16 2009. The URL has gone dead, but I guess someone in the area could do the legwork if they really wanted.)

    (Sidenote – why is a DA this closely involved in LE hiring? Honest question.)

    Kyle Bryant died Nov 25th, 2012, apparently of natural causes.

    Note that Brian Rickman was one of the pallbearers.

    I sincerely hope that Kyle Bryant is at peace. I’m playing with rhetorical fire a little bit in mentioning his death, and I note it here only to point out how close he appears to have been with Brian Rickman.

    Consider that between the time he staked his reputation on Kyle Bryant being as good as they come and the time where he was honored as a pallbearer, Brian Rickman was able to summon up enough objectivity to be the only non-civil law voice Abbie Ayers and her baby had to speak for Johnathan Ayers.

    Awesome. Just awesome. Good job Mr. Rickman.

    Jonathan Ayers is dead. Abbie Ayers a widow, and her son never met his father. Kyle Bryant is dead. I can’t imagine the aftermath of a police-involved shooting, particularly THIS police-involved shooting, did anything for his quality of life in his last couple of years. Billy Shane Harrison, who hadn’t done his training, is no longer a cop. Chance Oxner has gone in the space of a few years from being a task force commander (Bryant’s predecessor) to a burglary investigator (check the Habersham County Sheriff’s website). The training officer handpicked by Sherrif Randy Shirley, Edwin Wilson, was charged with a felony, fired, and apparently got a plea with no jail time.

    But the two sheriffs (Shirley of Stephens County and Terrell of Habersham) and the DA on watch (Rickman) during this absolute grade-A freak show have all been reelected, and it took more than four years to get this case to trial.

    Update (Feb 23, 2014): Jury awards widow $2.3 million. And I guess that is that…. The end.

  • New Development in Rev. Ayers Case

    Turns out that Billy Shane Harrison, the officer who killed Ayers, didn’t (and doesn’t) actually have police powers. He let his firearm training lapse. Oops (and from TV news).

    Maybe if this drug officer had had proper training, oh, I don’t know, he could have figured a better tactical way of stopping an innocent man for questioning without causing a situation where a good man gets killed while trying to get away from armed men he didn’t know were police!

    Now we don’t need to get into another debate about the shooting. But all you fools (I mean folks) who think this killing was somehow justified, ask yourself this: Can you imagine any police-involved shooting that isn’t justified? (short of cold-blood premeditated murder–which this was not.)

    It’s one thing to say, “Cops sometimes make mistakes. And sometimes a whole bunch of dumb-ass mistakes. And sometimes they comes together and, well, sorry. But mistakes aren’t crimes and we always need to give police the benefit of the doubt.” OK, fair enough. But if you go beyond that and think that allpolice-involved shootings are justified, then why even have this discussion?

    [I can think of only one shooting that was as bad as this one. After doing nothing wrong and following the orders of one FBI agent, poor Joseph Schultz gets shot in the face by the agent’s partner (a scared agent who probably never walked a beat, cleared a corner, or made a car stop in his life). And he got away with it, too! Turns out only the taxpayer got punished for their professional ineptitude.]

    [Thanks to Peter Guither’s excellent drugwarrant.com.]

  • Ayers killing “justified”

    Indeed, you read it here first (many thanks to my anonymous tipster).

    Here’s the story by Stephen Gurr in the Gainesville Times.

    Of course regardless of this decision and any lack of criminal conviction, the Ayers’ family will get a lot of money in some civil case. But no amount of money will bring Jonathan Ayers back. The whole situation–up to and including the shooting death of Ayers–this was bad policing.

  • The killing of Jonathan Ayers judged “good”

    I have just received word over the virtual transom (as of yet still unconfirmed word [update: now confirmed]) that this morning the grand jury decided notto bring criminal charges against the officers who killed Jonathan Ayers.

    I would have loved to have heard the facts as they were presented because knowing what I do know, the police-involved shooting seems very wrong. Certainly wrong enough to let a jury decide.

    If this is true, the officers had best be buying a very sympathetic prosecutor a nice Christmas present since, as the saying goes, you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.

  • He gave “all the money he had on him” – $23

    An anonymous reader sent me this link by Rob Moore and Donald Fraser of the Franklin County Citizen & The News Leader. Thanks. It’s an update on the shooting of Jonathan Ayers.

    The woman who was in the Rev. Jonathan Ayers’ car moments before he was shot by undercover drug agents in Toccoa on Sept. 1 is refuting reports that Ayers was involved in illegal activities.

    “I’m an addict,” 26-year-old Kayla Barrett admitted Tuesday, saying that Ayers was ministering to her on the day of his death.

    …

    She said that, over time, Ayers had been lecturing her and trying to get her to straighten out her life and to get off drugs.

    …

    “He told me I was too young to be living like I was living,” she said. “He didn’t want me to waste my life.”

    …

    Barrett said Ayers offered her a ride back to the motel.

    …

    Barrett said she asked Ayers if he could help her out with the back rent, and that he gave “all the money he had on him” – $23.

    “His last words to me were I didn’t owe him anything,” Barrett said. “Probably 15-20 minutes after that I could hear the shots.”

    Responding to allegations she has heard, she said, “No, we did not have sex.”

    …

    “He [Ayers] doesn’t have any part in any kind of drug activity,” Barrett insisted. “He’s never solicited me for prostitution.”

    …

    Barrett, who is charged with two counts of sale of cocaine, doesn’t deny that she sold drugs to an undercover agent.

  • More on Jonathan Ayers

    As time goes on, I’m liking this shooting less and less.

    I love how some conspiracy anti-police folks were saying there was never a woman in his car and the police made all that up.

    There was.

    Stephens County court records now indicate the woman riding with Ayers the day he was shot was Kala Jones Barrett, whose home is listed as a Relax Inn in Toccoa. Warrants say she was wanted for coke peddling. Her father, Joseph Jones, has also confirmed his daughter was in the car that day. But she says Ayers was only giving her a ride and providing ministerial advice.

    That’s from the Village Voice and their True Crime Report.

    The Atlanta Journal Constitutionreports:

    Ayers was able to drive away from the Shell station but crashed into a utility pole a short distance away. It was there that Ayers, according to Carpenter, asked paramedics “Who shot me?”

    …

    The store owner, Joe Joseph, said he didn’t know the agents were law enforcement officers and it looked like they were firing at each other.

    …

    The agents were assigned to a task force that investigates drug cases in Stephens, Habersham and Rabun Counties. Ayers caught their attention because he was with a woman who twice sold drugs to the officers, said Bankhead.

    “What they saw was indicative of drug transaction,” Bankhead said. “They didn’t know the guy. They followed him to the convenience store and tried to arrest him.”

    The woman’s name has not been released because she is still being questioned about the shooting. She is being held in the Stephens County Jail on drug charges.

    Carpenter [Ayer’s brother in law] said people often called the Shoal Creek Baptist Church for help.

    “She was asking for cash and he brought her some cash to help her out,” Carpenter said. “Jonathan sought to do exactly what God wanted him to do.”

    Gulp. What if that’s the truth?

    Steve Huff on a CBS-news blog says: “According to investigators who spoke to the TV station, no drugs were found on Ayers’ person or in his vehicle.”

    The cop in me is always suspicious. I first assumed Ayers had bought drugs or was getting a little something on side. That doesn’t necessarily defend the shooting, but still, it matters.

    But one thing I tried to do as a cop was always keep open the slight possibility that somebody was actually, God forbid, telling the complete truth. Granted I can’t remember a single case where that actually happened. But I always liked to keep that possibility open. Maybe that meant I bought into a lie for an extra five minutes. I like to think it made me a better cop.

    Now I’m starting to think Ayers was 100% innocent. He let the woman out of his car. If he had bought drugs, we would have had some on him. Maybe this really was an honest man of God trying to help somebody.

    Why’s it so hard to imagine that guys jumping out a car with guns drawn scared the bejesus out of him? Why’s it so hard to imagine that plainclothes cops don’t look like cops?

    Why isn’t this bigger news?

    I guess there’s no Al Sharpton for white people.

  • Undercover Cops Kill Jonathan Ayers

    In an off-topic comment to another post, “Badge Licker” (is that like Holster Sniffer?) wrote:

    “Undercover narcotics agents take out the trash this week.”

    I clicked on the link and realized this was talking about Jonathan Ayers. That got me thinking.

    Here’s a later report [dead link removed] from the same Fox News station.

    [dead link removed]

    I replied to Badge Licker:

    I assume by “trash” you mean “Christian” and by “taking out the the trash” you mean “undercover officers killing a man who thought he was getting car-jacked because the cops weren’t in uniform?”

    I’m actually shocked that Pastor Ayers is white.

    Maybe Ayers was involved in a little something something. But maybe not. We don’t know. But we do know he wasn’t the target of the raid. And the woman who was, was charged with (gasp) cocaine possession.

    Badge Licker said:

    The undercover narcotics officers announced, so that automatically means Reverend Ayers heard and understood and believed they were police and knew that it was not a car jacking as you implausibly suggest, PCM. Because Reverend Ayers knew they were police and tried to run them over anyway that means that Reverend Ayers was involved in some type of crime. Ergo, trash was taken out by them. The video shows how undercover narcotics officers help keep Georgia safe.

    A guy with gun yelling police isn’t necessary convincing. What is convincing is a guy in a police uniform yelling police.

    PCM said:

    It is certainly not unreasonable to consider the possibility that that Ayers thought he was being carjacked.

    We don’t know how clearly the officer announced they were police. And we certainly don’t know if Ayers understood. The owner of the gas station said he had no idea they were police. So they didn’t announce themselves *that* clearly. This is a problem that happens again and again with undercover. Sean Bell comes to mind (and Bell was less innocent that Ayers). So does the killing of Agent Michael Cowdery.

    And what justifies shooting at the car as it’s driving away (this is after the officer pulls the very cool roll-off-the-car-and-land-on-your-feet move)? Ayers was no longer a threat and, at least according the police department, he was not a suspect in their investigation.

    Perhaps others also have thoughts on this shooting?

    Above link is dead. But this onestill works.

    And without the news-broadcast audio: