Looks like we might have a situation brewing in my hometown.
Undercover drug enforcement agents shot and killed a 28 year old pastor just after he pulled money out of an ATM at a local Shell station.
It is way too early to know the full details. Nobody who knew the pastor seems to think that he would have ever had anything to do with drugs. And even if he did if he was not armed and threatening the drug enforcement officers I think that killing him was not the thing to do.
If it turns out that this was a case of mistaken identity my guess is that the officers will claim that they were afraid he was going to run them over so they shot in self defense.
But again, way too early to jump to any conclusions even though the video does not make it look good for the drug warriors.
To make matters even worse the pastor’s wife is pregnant with their first child.
Hat tip to JR for the video link.
How creepy… eek.
It is not out of the question that the pastor was dealing in drugs. Right here in Montreal a rabbi was found guilty of dealing in cocaine several years ago. From the video it looks like the pastor almost ran down one of the drug enforcement agents with his car while driving fairly aggressively in reverse. I would not be *too* quick to judge the drug enforcement agents. Better to wait until more facts come to light.
with the level of corruption in the DEA and other narcotics units- I always assume they’re at fault. Usually, I’m right.
However you paint it, this is another pointless casualty in a pointless ‘war’.
Agreed. It would have been a pointless casualty in a more or less pointless war if the pastor had run over and killed on of the drug enforcement agents. I am just got the impression that Buck was overplaying the whole innocent victim bit, especially in saying, “he was not armed and threatening the drug enforcement officers.” Tell that to the officer he almost ran over in his car. . .
Just to be clear, I am not saying that the pastor is not completely innocent in this matter, only that he *might* not be innocent. His aggressive driving raises my suspicions a bit but I can well understand how he might have thought that the plainclothes drug enforcement officers were criminals and he was simply trying to escape them. The main point is that we just don’t know enough of the facts yet to be sure one way or the other.
There is more information available now which suggests that Jonathan Ayers was innocent himself but that a woman who was his passenger was a target of a drug sting. Looking at the video though I don’t think that he helped the situation with his aggressive driving which could have injured or killed on of the drug enforcement officers. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out and I am curious as to just when the officers fired the first shot. The police are claiming that Ayers was not shot until after Ayers had struck one of the officers with his car while reversing. AFAIAC an aggressively driven car that deliberately or accidentally hits someone is a weapon and I expect that the drug enforcement officers felt the same way.
they were at an atm and some men approach them… I’m betting they thought they were getting robbed if they were trying ‘aggressively’ to leave. A similar event happened in St. Louis a few years ago- they set up a sting of a low level drug dealer in the parking lot of a busy jack in the box at 4 in the afternoon. they filled the car with bullet holes, saying the driver tried to run them down. this directly contradicted what bystanders said.
whether it’s a cop or citizen, when someone dies because of this nonsense, it’s pointless.
I’ve been on over 15,000 911 calls, have been interviewed by the fbi for people being beaten, and have seen the machine in action many times. this whole thing looks bad.
I’ll have to agree with Marty… I can imagine a case where the officer was entirely in the right, but even then, the DEA had no business conducting their sting in such an uncontrolled environment… or really conducting a “sting” against a purported victimless crime to begin with. Using the heavy hand of the law *always* endangers law enforcement and the public. You do it when something really needs to be stopped (in order to serve and protect), right here & right now. Elsewise it’s tantamount to reckless endangerment, in my view.
There are so many ATM robberies and robberies where the criminals pretend to be police these days that I probably would have assumed I were being robbed too if I were in Ayers’ situation. Assuming the officer was hit, I’m not sure why a drug enforcement officer thought it was a good idea to get behind the car of someone that he was trying to arrest. People drive aggressively when they are panicked and surely the agents knew that by effectively simulating a robbery they would induce panic. Using an Escalade, a car so synonymous with drug dealers that driving one is practically probable cause in the inner city, was a nice touch.
I will never understand why stings are so often performed with such little regard for innocent bystanders. If you’re so hot to catch this woman, why not wait until they leave the ATM then pull them over by the side of the road rather than acting like you’re robbing them?
Unless, you know, you WANT the target to think you’re a criminal and panic so you can get her on assaulting a police officer, too…
CC
I know it is not out of the question for a pastor to be involved in drugs and prostitution. Hell, policemen are just as apt to be involved in drugs and prostitution as preachers are.
Most of the folks around here who knew the guy say they assume he thought he was being robbed and was just trying to get away.
Anytime an innocent person is shot while still in a vehicle the explanation is that the police feared for their safety.
That is probably in the manual.
I don’t think that deadly force was justified in this situation. But I am confident that the investigation will lead to a different conclusion.
I agree that shooting Jonathan Ayers, or anyone else in the same situation (even a known criminal), could have been and should have been avoided. AFAIAC There was questionable behavior on both sides of this equation and only a thorough investigation of what actually happened might explain what really happened. I believe both parties made serious mistakes in this matter, mistakes that ultimately cost Jonathan Ayers his life.
The police did absolutely everything they could to ensure that Ayers and his passenger would make that mistake, though.
I don’t know how often this happens in Canada, but it is fairly common in America for the police to do things that make them look like criminals like breaking into houses in the middle of the night while not wearing uniforms, then claim that the person who shot at them HAD to have known they were police and couldn’t POSSIBLY have assumed they were being burglarized.
We have people on death row here for shooting police officers that were breaking into houses unidentified in the middle of the night.
It’s just stupid.
CC
(((Anytime an innocent person is shot while still in a vehicle the explanation is that the police feared for their safety.)))
We had a kid who died up here a couple of years ago because he and his friends skipped out on a restaurant check and the police officer essentially jumped in front of their car.
Naturally at that point, there was a car coming at him and thus the officer was in danger, so he had no choice but to shoot through the windshield, killing the teenage passenger.
That killing the teenager did nothing to stop the car, shooting at the driver made it far more likely the car was going to go into traffic and kill someone, and was really, really pointless didn’t matter much. The police officer wasn’t even disciplined.
CC
who is still blown away when she thinks about that kid dying over a stolen plate of pancakes and that police officer’s stupidity.
“Naturally at that point, there was a car coming at him and thus the officer was in danger, so he had no choice but to shoot through the windshield, killing the teenage passenger.”
It seems to me that if a police officers has time to shoot he has time to jump out of the way of the oncoming car. . . That is one of the reasons why I said that this shooting could have been avoided.
My thinking exactly.
the only ‘mistake’ the pastor made was living. this could’ve happened to any of us. in the early 80s, there were 3000 swat raids annually- now there are over 50,000. swat teams are being utilized to serve routine drug warrants, break up neighborhood poker games and create photo ops for hooters waitresses. lots of people are needlessly exposed to these paramilitary cops being deployed by the govt against us. the pastor was minding his own business. he was unarmed. he was killed for no reason.
we need a nice, destructive riot.
It is simple,under cover do the investigating,let a marked car with a uniformed officer do the stopping,then they approach.
Exactly.
Something was bothering me about this video so I watched it again. Two cops get out of the car. The car does roll backwards a foot or two, but then TWO cops go chasing after the car.
So how is the police’s claim that the guy hit an officer not a complete lie? At WORST, the car bumped the officer as it rolled backwards very slowly, but didn’t hurt him enough to keep him from running seconds later. I don’t think the cop even had time to stand up if he had been knocked over.
[...] up on this post the district attorney in the case says it will be another 3 to 4 weeks before the official [...]