Police
Julian Lewis Police Shooting : 5 Facts You Should Know
Former Georgia State Patrol Trooper Jacob Gordon Thompson was charged with murder for fatally shooting Julian Lewis.
Julian Lewis went out to get a grape soda for his wife on August 7.
But he never came home.
Instead, the 60-year-old Black man was pursued by a Georgia state trooper on a rural road, his car ending up pinned between a tree and the trooper’s car.
Lewis died after he was shot in the head, his family’s attorney, Francys Johnson, told CNN.
Here are five facts you should know:
1. Officer Fired & Charged With For Fatally Shooting Julian Lewis
On Friday, August 14, 2020, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested Georgia State Patrol Trooper Jacob Gordon Thompson for fatally shooting Julian Lewis during.
Thompson, 27, was charged with felony murder and aggravated assault.
2. Lewis was a soft-spoken, peaceful man family says
Lewis has been described as soft-spoken and peaceful. During his funeral, friends and family recalled how the skilled carpenter volunteered to do work for seniors and a local church.
His only child, Brook Bacon, remembered his father as a good man who was “too good to die as he did on Stoney Pond,” Johnson said.
What Lewis’ loved ones want to know is why he ended up dead at the hands of a trooper while running an errand.
“It is not altogether clear to us that Mr. Lewis was trying to flee,” Johnson said.
3. A broken taillight leads to police chase
Preliminary information shows that the trooper attempted to stop a Nissan Sentra for a traffic related offense on Stoney Pond Road in Screven County.
The car refused to stop and led the trooper on a brief chase down several county roads.
His attorney said it was likely that Lewis was trying to get to his uncle’s house nearby so that a witness could see the police interaction.
The pursuit took place near Sylvania in Screven County, about halfway between Savannah and Augusta in the southeastern part of the state.
The trooper said the vehicle sped up to “what appeared to be around 65 mph or more” and he turned on his lights and gave chase on a few county roads.
Heinitiated a Precision Intervention Technique (PIT) and the car came to a stop in the ditch.
The trooper claims he feared for his life which made he draw his weapon.
“Being concerned for my safety, I drew my weapon as I got out of the vehicle,” he said in the report.
Thompson said in the report that he heard Lewis’ car revving and saw him “wrenching the steering wheel in an aggressively back and forth manner towards me and my patrol vehicle.”
“It appeared to me that the violator was trying to use his vehicle to injure me,” Thompson explained.
“Being in fear for my life and safety, I discharged my weapon once. After I fired, the violator sat back motionless.”
The trooper fired one round, striking Lewis.
Lewis was pronounced deceased on scene.
Thompson was booked at the Screven County Jail and has been terminated from the Department of Public Safety, Georgia State Patrol.
4. Officer Will Not Be Charged
In the latest update to the case in June, the former trooper will not be charged.
Former Georgia State Patrol officer Jacob Thompson will not face indictment for fatally shooting 60-year-old Julian Lewis during a traffic stop last August.
On June 28, 2020 A Screven County grand jury declined to indict Thompson for killing Lewis last summer after he was pulled over for a broken tail light, Associated Press reports.
Thompson had been arrested and charged with felony murder and aggravated assault in the Aug. 7 shooting.
5. Family still has not seen body cam video of Julian Lewis police shooting
Francys Johnson, an attorney for Lewis’ family said they want to see video from the shooting.
He also called on District Attorney Daphne Totten to impanel another grand jury to try again to get an indictment.
Lawyers for Lewis’ family expressed disappointment with the grand jury’s decision.
“Make no mistake about it, we believe that this was a very strong case,” Johnson said during a news conference.
“The evidence was there. It still is.”
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Police
Family of Black girls handcuffed by Colorado police, held at gunpoint reach $1.9 million settlement
The family of four Black girls who were wrongfully detained and held at gunpoint by Aurora, CO police have reached a settlement with the city.
Family of Black girls held at gunpoint reach settlement
Finalized on Monday, the families will collectively receive $1.9 million.
The settlement marks the latest payout the City of Aurora has been forced to make over officers’ excessive use of force.
In 2021, the city paid a $15 million settlement to Elijah McClain’s family, a 23-year-old Black man who died in 2019 after officers put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine.
The incident
In August 2020, four Black girls, ages 6, 12, 14 and 17, were held face down on the ground and put in handcuffs in a nail salon parking lot, crying and screaming, as officers towered over them.
Brittney Gilliam, the mother of the 6-year-old, was driving that Sunday morning with her relatives, because they were going to get their nails done together.
Wrongfully detained
But before they made it in the salon, Gilliam was detained after officers mistakenly thought she was driving a stolen S.U.V.
Police had mistakenly believed Gilliam was driving a stolen car.
And a simple second step police failed to take, resulted in the family being wrongfully detained.
Officers didn’t type in the plate number in a second database to show them the make of the vehicle. If they had, authorities said, the officers would have realized that the plate number was registered to a motorcycle in Montana.
Black girls and mother held at gunpoint traumatized
Dozens of bystanders watched the ordeal unfold, and video footage of the incident went viral, sparking protests over racial injustice, citing excessive force on Black Americans.
After the video went viral, Aurora police had apologized for their grave mistake, but the emotional trauma had already happened.
The Aurora Police Department said its officers are trained to draw their weapons before telling passengers to exit the vehicle and ordering them to lie on the ground, The Post reported.
Officers who held Black girls at gunpoint
One of the two officers who drew their guns and handcuffed members of the family was initially suspended.
However, he and the other officer that pulled his firearm remain on the police force, the New York Times reports.
To date, no officers were fired or charged in connection with the incident.
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Police
2023 saw a record year of killings by police in U.S.
The number of people killed by police in the United States reached a new high in 2023, according to new research.
The number of people killed by police in the United States reached a new high in 2023, according to new research.
2023 police killings increased dramatically
Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group, dockets deaths at the hands of police officers. Last year, it recorded the highest number of killings since its national tracking began in 2013.
Statistics explained
The data reported that police officers killed 1,329 people in 2023, representing nearly a 19-percent increase over the 11-year span.
Nearly 90% of those killed were fatally shot, according to Abdul Nasser Rad, managing director of research and data at Campaign Zero, who runs Mapping Police Violence.
There were only 14 days without a police killing last year and on average, law enforcement officers killed someone every 6.6 hours, according to the report.
Meanwhile last year, the number of people killed by gunfire and officers killed in the line of duty declined, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. There was an increase in the number of police officers shot.
The newly released data suggests a grim reality and a systemic crisis, with an average of about three people killed by officers each day, with slight increases in recent years. In 2022, 1,250 were killed by police.
The data also reported that Black people were about 2.8 times more likely to be killed by officers than their white counterparts between 2013 and 2023.
Recording police misconduct
For decades, many Americans have suffered various forms of brutality and injustice at the hands of “bad” law enforcement officers.
When a civilian puts in a complaint against the officer only a small percent of complaints result in the officer being disciplined —partly because the accusations are hidden.
Half of the battle is knowing who the “bad” law enforcement are and proper action being taken.
Missin Peace, a national police misconduct database that collects formal civilian complaints against law enforcement, helps fill that void.
In 2022, we had a conversation with the creators, who urged those who filed a complaint against an officer, to upload it on their website as well.
While there is still much work to do, it’s a start.
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Unheard Voices Magazine LLC is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
Police
14-year-old boy with autism tased by police in what family says was case of mistaken identity
An Illinois family is demanding answers after their 14-year-old autistic son was tased by police in what they maintain was a case of mistaken identity.
An Illinois family is demanding answers after their 14-year-old autistic son was tased by police in what they maintain was a case of mistaken identity.
14-year-old autistic boy tased by police
In an interview with WLS Chicago, the family says that the teen, Avarius Thompson, suffered injuries, including a fractured hip, during an encounter with Dolton police on the morning of Nov.
Police’s incident report
According to the Dolton Police Department’s incident report, Dolton police were assisting police in the nearby neighborhood of Riverdale in the search for four Black males who had fled from a crashed, stolen vehicle, two of whom were allegedly carrying rifles and a handgun.
Dolton officers spotted two subjects, one of whom matched the description of a suspect sought in the incident, in a nearby backyard and pursued them, according to the incident report.
An officer pursuing Avarius ordered the teen to stop before tasing him, according to the incident report.
The incident was captured on the officer’s body-camera footage.
“Hands up! Hands up!” a Dolton police officer can be heard yelling in the body-camera footage as he runs toward Avarius with his Taser extended. After the teen jumps over a fence, the officer deploys the taser, the footage shows.
Avarius attempts to get up when the officer deploys his Taser again a few seconds later, the footage shows.
“Don’t move. Don’t move,” the officer says. “You move, you’re going to get some more.”
Avarius’ father, Eric Thompson, told WLS that the footage was “frightening.”
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Unheard Voices Magazine LLC is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
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