TheAgitator.com
Update on the Jonathan Ayers Case
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010My crime column this week look at some incredible new developments in the death of Johnathan Ayers, the Georgia pastor killed last year by an anti-narcotics task force.
35 Responses to “Update on the Jonathan Ayers Case”
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OT: Was walking to work this morning and saw 5 or 6 people, who didn’t appear to know each other, standing around a cop as he wrote them each a citation, one at a time, at 13th and I St., NW. Pretty sure he was writing them up for jaywalking. If I recall correctly, I think the timing on the lights is a little off, so that the Don’t Walk sign stays on well after the traffic between streets has had a red light, leaving a 5-10 second delay in which no one, cars or pedestrians, is moving. It’s a one-way street.
ANYWAY. If I happened to be one of these unfortunates flagged down by a cop looking for a cheap way to hit his quota in such a way (jaywalking), what can I do besides just sheepishly wait around for my turn for the privilege of getting hit with a comically absurd fine? I’m sure I could take it to court and it would get dropped, but I don’t know if I’d be able to calmly stand there with a group of other people waiting to be arbitrarily cited by a pathetic cop for no fucking good reason at all. Nor do I want to take a few hours out of my day to go to fucking traffic court or whatever.
Could I just keep walking and make him actually arrest me if he were that committed to showing me who’s boss? What’s the best course of action here?? Input appreciated!
(Oh, this is in Wash DC, btw)
Don’t jaywalk?
This entire story is just jaw dropping.
The man is not a suspect, not committing a crime, nothing… the police state that they just want to ask him questions.
So… They roar up out of nowhere, guns drawn, and demand compliance? What the fuck? Where in civilized society is this accepted behavior?
What do these assholes do when then need to ask for help at a store? Pull guns and demand to be shown where the glassware department is?
I have to wonder… what would they have done if he fully complied? Arrest him? For what? Ask him a few casual questions while pointing guns at his head? Kidnap him and drag him to the Gulag for interrogation?
What really chaffs me is the response from the Department… as if this is just good policework.
These ‘cops’ all need to be in prison. The ones that shot Ayers, their supervisors, and the brass above them. Some for murder, some as accessory to murder, and some for conspiracy of some kind.
There are no good cops. As long as there is a blue wall of silence, they’re all guilty.
Not trained in the use of lethal force. Not trained in the use of common sense either.
for what it’s worth this is the Deliverence part of GA…
down here in the civilized part of the state, we shoot grandmas.
“Three officers, all undercover, got out of the vehicle and pointed their guns at Ayers.”
Awesome. But why don’t we have Undercover Cops for, say War Crimes.
Imagine BushCo dragged off in handcuffs by Secret Police
once it became clear there were no WMDs, the official reason
for leveling Baghdad and dropping White Phosphorus all over Fallujah.
Or CI’s working on Wall Street, snitches infiltrating the highest echelon of Insider Trading schemes. Imagine that.
Ira – plus 5 for you. I’m also in Atlanta, and had a similar thought.
Hey, Radley, when you coming down here to visit?
Remember, violence and death are a sign the drug war is working as planned. If murdering innocent citizens makes is what it takes to make it 5% more difficult to score coke, our government is more than willing to make that trade.
As long as we keep 1 kid off drugs, it’s worth it!
I’m waiting for the article from a cop arguing that the killers in this case showed remarkable restraint and that they wouldn’t change a thing. We need to seriously consider the fact that the drug war has created a network of secret police with nearly unlimited powers. They can question you without cause, search you without suspicion and kill you without consequence.
The only solution is to demand meaningful reform at all levels of government. Citizen review boards with teeth ought to be mandatory in every jurisdiction. Beyond letting our federal elected officials know that we object to prohibition, we must pay attention to local elections (city council, sheriff and judicial) and focus on getting in candidates who care about protecting us, not the police. Turn out in those elections is so abysmally low that focused activism can and will be effective.
Will the comments here do? (Warning: May make you angrier than Radley’s article did)
http://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/2020395-Suit-says-Ga-cop-wasnt-certified-when-he-shot-suspect/
I really appreciate the attention you have given this one Radley.
#12
I have not bothered to read the comments but my guess is that they say things like “he should not have been messing around with whores” Right? I just can’t read shit like that anymore. It raises my blood pressure too much. The other favorite around here is, “you know that if she wins the lawsuit taxes are gonna go up!”
I tell ‘em that I would rather my tax money be used to pay the mother and the fatherless child than the salaries of the damn drug warriors.
#12 | Andrew S.
You’re right- NOW I’m pissed. I lost count of how many times ‘frivolous lawsuit’ was mentioned. Anyone who needs a wake up call that law enforcement is not their friend, needs to read the comments left by LEO’s on these articles. Horrible.
This was not a call for help by anyone. Look at the times people call for help and things go horribly wrong… How can anyone welcome any contact with the police? They’re revenuers and thugs using us as job security.
There was once a time when I would have stopped and rendered aid to a LEO if it looked like they were in trouble.
Not anymore, I’d drive right past the mother fucker.
Ayers was murdered, plain and simple. And no one will be punished for it. NO ONE!
#12. The comments at policeone.com solidify what I’ve said here and elsewhere many times. Police are scumbags. All of them. They deserve whatever horrible fate any of them run into while performing their job. I used to comment a few years ago at a similar website. Was threatened with death, rape, scores of atrocities, by LEOs. Eventually you had to prove you were LE to post there.
On my bucket list: taking a big steaming dump at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in DC. Or least pissing all over it. Fuck ‘em all.
As a libertarian I believe in judging everyone on their individual merit, not based on whatever demographic group they belong to. In other words, don’t assume someone is bad just because they are a cop. But shit like this story, and the comments section in Andrew’s link, sure make it tough.
Yeah, he apparently didn’t need lethal force training – he knew how to use it.
What’s that? Oh, he would have learned *when* to use it. Must be an advanced study…
Quote of the day from #12′s article
This sounds like another case of playing the lawsuit lottery. She just wants a little attention. GEESH!!
Move along, nothing to see here.
So what do you do when the state agents abuse citizens and the state courts consistently side with the agents? And, when I say “abuse” I mean “murder”.
Never read comment sections!
Damn right these fine professionals showed restraint. Most LEO’s would have gone to the guy’s house, shot his dog and tased his pregnant wife.
People really need to stop seeing law enforcement as humble professionals saving us like they’re doctors or firefighters. Law Enforcement is just like any other government agency. Full of excuses for fucking up. They’re not any different than the TSA, Post Office, Members of Congress, or the DMV.
I agree with you Mattocracy, except that LEO’s “incompetence” is backed up with the means to directly commit violence. So they’re worse than the Post Office, Congress and DMV. And the TSA may have the means, but they don’t go around killing people and their dogs every day – yet.
My favorite from #12′s link to policeone.com:
Well, they hit what they were shooting at, (him), when he tried to run over them, so I guess the officers were quite qualified, weren’t they?
But if you follow the links on the Reason article, you’ll find that the guy who Ayers hit had a bruise under his left arm from where the truck hit him, and a BULLET FRAGMENT in his left arm. So yes, they did manage to kill the unarmed preacher that they ambushed, but of all the places the other round went, it went into the guy that the other cop was trying to protect/avenge.
Oops.
Cops need to stop wanting to have it both ways, and be allowed to have it.
I mean, either you’re gonna do all this aggressive Rambo shit, AND accept the consequences when innocents die because of your mistakes, OR you’re gonna stop and realize this aggressive Rambo shit is crap, and change up your policies.
The more I go back and look at this case, the more flabergasted at the sheer, unadulterated hubris displayed by the cock swinging, self aggrandizing jackasses that are the LEOs involved I become.
And that’s no mean feat!
Listen to this, from the guy that shot Ayers:
“Harrison said he shot because he thought Oxner had been hit and killed and because he feared he, too, would be hurt.”
What? What kind of utter bullshit is that? Oxner was barely touched by the car, he not only was NOT killed he didn’t even fall down, He was still standing there, 2 fucking feet from Harrison as he opened fire on the guy. There is no way in hell he could have though “Oxnar has been killed!”
The guy guns down an innocent man, then makes a patently false statement to try to justify it by placing himself in ‘danger’.
While we’re at it… let’s armchair quarterback what the cops involved THOUGHT was going to happen… because really, WHAT THE FUCK WHERE THEY THINKING? All they knew was that their target, the woman, was in his car earlier. They had no PC to arrest, no warrant to search, nothing. The professional thing to do would be jot down the tags of the car, take some notes… and continue with the ‘investigation’.
But we’re not dealing with professionals here, so here’s what I think went down:
I think they assumed that this guy was guilty, a ‘bad guy’, and that there must be drugs in the car. They were going to arrest him for drug dealing and take him in for interrogation… where he’ll give up his girlfriend and all the drugs. He’s certainly armed (All Drug Dealers ™ are armed…) so they better do it fast and hard.
Now… bear in mind that that’s just my interpretation of the events as I know them… it’s the only scenario I can think of that accurately matches the data.
Tragically, the only way to make the actions fit the data is to assume the cops involved have the mentality of 14 year olds playing “COPS!” on the playground… except with real guns. (Not real badges, though… at least for the one guy). Sure, “Axe Cop” would act this way, but he’s the result of the overactive imagination of a 6 year old, not a supposed ‘trained professional’.
Explain to me again why these guys aren’t in prison? And why I should ever trust the cops?
“Harrison said he shot because he thought Oxner had been hit and killed and because he feared he, too, would be hurt.”
I haven’t gone back and looked at the articles Radley linked to but according to other reporting I have read Oxner actually had to scream at Harrison to stop shooting because he (Oxner) was being hit by fragments of bullets and chunks of concrete.
It was a clusterfuck of the highest magnitude.
The posts at policeone.com were shockingly awful. I think that should be linked to whenever one encounters a police officer complaining about public criticism. What do they expect people to feel? Gratitude?
Got a song for Officer Harrison. Hopefully he’ll be singing it soon. The falsetto part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJWNTSbDs0s
@16 That’s probably an act of terrorism under the Patriot Act.
What about the hooker’s statement where she says he had an extended affair with Ayers? Is this just some sort of smear?
@#31 – At this point we know the police claim she sold crack to an undercover and charged $50 for it, so it seems likely that the police came down on her in a backroom somewhere and said something like “Serve up some dirt on this guy, make some shit up, and we might go easy on you.”
But regardless, whether he was intimately involved with her or not, it doesn’t matter. They had no warrant, they had no exigent circumstances, they had nothing other than a desire to ask him some questions. So naturally the thing to do is screech to a stop in front of him at a gas station and jump out of their undercover SUV in their undercover threads waving their very real very large pistols and yelling at him.
Seriously, what the hell? He could have been doing her AND farm animals ALL WHILE HIGH AS A !@#$!@#$ KITE and it wouldn’t matter one goddamn bit because the police knew NOTHING about any of it when they decided to go all commando on him.
This is like preemptive tasering during routine traffic stops, it’s just outlandish.
The sex allegations are totally unbelievable and downright vile. The woman was obviously pressured to change her story to get a better deal from police.
It’s bad enough these despicable bastards shot and killed an innocent man and got away with it but to drag his name through the mud just to save their own asses is utterly vile.
As #15 stated there was a time I’d have been the first one to jump in and help a police officer in distress (I in fact did so once in the early 90s) but after more recent personal experience with LE and seeing what they’ve done to my innocent countrymen I would no longer do so. If I happened on the same incident today I’d cruise right on by and not feel the least bit guilty about it.
#17,
What’s wrong with collective judgment? If I say, “Murderers and rapists are bad people, and can’t be trusted, and deserve nothing better than utter contempt”, that’s a collective judgment. And it seems to be a collective judgment that is proper and sound, just because it is a collective judgment that is grouping individuals together based on individual traits that make one a bad, contemptible person who ought not be trusted. Saying, “cops are assholes who can’t be trusted; they see you as an enemy noncombatant at best and will treat you as badly as they think they can get away with” is no less “individualistic” or libertarian or whatever than saying, “black people have naturally darker skin and kinkier hair than white people”. Sure, there might be some exceptions, but the judgment seems sound enough, regardless.
You are all wrong!! All we, really, need is another federal agency to take care of this problem! (yeah Right!) But what would we call it? The Anti-blue line agency?