Last week, federal prosecutors announced that former Georgia deputy Nikki Autry would be indicted on charges of making false statements to a judge in order to obtain a warrant to raid a home in Habersham County. During that raid, one deputy blindly deployed a flash grenade that landed in a playpen, critically injuring a toddler.

...

In May 2014, Nikki Autry and a team of special agents and informants from the local Narcotics Criminal Investigation and Suppression Team were “attempting undercover narcotics buys.” Autry presented an affidavit to a magistrate judge falsely swearing that a “true and reliable informant” had bought a small amount of methamphetamine at a residence.

Based on the erroneous information she presented, which also included claims of “heavy traffic in and out of the residence,” the judge issued Autry a “no knock” search warrant.

...

The federal indictment concludes the raid should not have happened.

“Without her false statements, there was no probable cause to search the premises for drugs or to make the arrests,” acting U.S. Attorney John Horn said in a release.

“In this case,” he said, “the consequences of the unlawful search were tragic.”

According to the indictment, Autry is charged with four counts of civil rights violations for “willfully depriving the occupants of the residence of their right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Autry is also charged with depriving the man suspected of selling drugs, Wanis Thonetheva, of “his right to be free from arrest without probable cause.”

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   The sheriff said that the Special Response Team, SRT, did the best they could with the information they were given.

   A confidential informant was sent to the residence on Tuesday to make a buy for methamphetamine, Terrell said. At the time of the purchase, there were two Mercedes SUVs parked in the driveway, with a guard standing at the front door and the back door. The informant did not enter the home and made the alleged purchase in the doorway, the sheriff said.

   “It was really uncomfortable, and really intimidating. The informant made the purchase and left the residence,” Terrell said. “He didn’t see anything to indicate that there was a child in the house.”

   After the buy, the SRT came back with a no-knock warrant to arrest the suspected dealer.

According to federal prosecutors, none of these things were true. There either was no informant or Autry lied about what the informant said. There was no guard. There was no drug buy in the doorway. The GBI also denied at the time that it had approved the raid. The agency began investigating the case in June of last year but doesn’t appear to have issued a report.

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There’s one more lesson to be learned here. Terrell isn’t the only official who cleared these officers. District Attorney Brian Rickman did too, as did a grand jury. So did the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. How is it that the sheriff, the DA, a grand jury and the state police all looked into this, and none of them found what the feds found — that this entire raid was based on a series of lies?

As I’ve pointed out before, it isn’t the first time this has happened in Georgia. In fact, it isn’t the first time it has happened with this particular drug task force. Back in 2009, the same task force that conducted this investigation shot and killed Rev. Jonathan Ayers after confronting him at a convenience store. Ayers was unarmed and innocent. He became a suspect after investigators saw him talking to a local prostitute they were investigating for dealing drugs. In fact, Ayers was ministering to the woman. The task force as a whole and the officers who shot Ayers were cleared of any wrongdoing. They were cleared by Terrell and another sheriff who oversees them. They were cleared by DA Rickman. They were cleared by a grand jury. And they were cleared by the GBI. Rickman told one local newspaper that investigators went “to extraordinary lengths” to get to the bottom of what happened and that “I do not see how anybody could say the process was unfair based on the lengths that they went to.”

And yet this happened:

   Ayers left behind a wife, Abigail, who at the time of his death was pregnant with her first child. She filed a lawsuit and hired her own investigator to look into the shooting. What he found is astonishing. As it turns out, Officer Billy Shane Harrison, the cop who shot Ayers, hadn’t taken the series of firearms training classes required for his certification as a police officer. It gets worse. It turns out that Harrison also had received zero training in the use of lethal force.

   He wasn’t authorized to make arrests or to carry a gun. Yet somehow he had been given a position on a narcotics task force, a position that not only gave him a gun but put him in volatile, high-stakes situations where he might be tempted to use it. Abigail Ayers’s lawsuit also alleged that Harrison and Officer Chance Oxner, who initially bought the drugs from the woman Ayers was counseling, had a history of disciplinary problems, including use of illicit drugs.

So within six years, we’ve had two-high profile incidents involving this task force, one that critically injured a baby and one that resulted in the death of an innocent pastor. In both cases, the officers were cleared by the local police agency, the local DA, a grand jury and the state police. And in both cases, outside investigators later turned up information not only damning but also devastating, and that should have been obvious to anyone investigating these cases with any interest in getting at the truth, rather than merely exonerating the police officers involved. These cases are worth keeping in mind when we hear about police investigations that clear other cops of wrongdoing, in Georgia and elsewhere.

Quoted:
Is this the same one where they burned the shit out of the baby on a bogus warrant and then refused to pay the 6 figure medical bills that the family incurred?

Quoted:
Is this the same one where they burned the shit out of the baby on a bogus warrant and then refused to pay the 6 figure medical bills that the family incurred?

Quoted:


Lazy police work.  Gives everyone else a bad name.  



She would have had to know that once they make the arrest, they would have to prove that there were buys from there.

Quoted:
GBI doesn't pull punches.  If they investigated it, I would like to read the report before saying they didn't do a good job.  They have no issue locking up cops and have done it numerous times.

It's hard to believe GBI would totally skip something as basic as speaking to the CI.  

Something isn't right.  


The part below that about the previous shooting is inaccurate.  The guy was caught getting a BJ from a hooker and ran.  He wasn't trying to win her to Christianity.  The officer hadn't requalled with his pistol and was due for release n-service...not a huge deal like he is making it out to be.  Happens all the time and people still work.  

Quoted:
GBI doesn't pull punches.  If they investigated it, I would like to read the report before saying they didn't do a good job.  They have no issue locking up cops and have done it numerous times.

It's hard to believe GBI would totally skip something as basic as speaking to the CI.  

Something isn't right.  


The part below that about the previous shooting is inaccurate.  The guy was caught getting a BJ from a hooker and ran.  He wasn't trying to win her to Christianity.  The officer hadn't requalled with his pistol and was due for release n-service...not a huge deal like he is making it out to be.  Happens all the time and people still work.  

Quoted:
Most street cops have no control over who does the job and who is in the department. That responsibility is on the command staff.

I had one experience where a new guy turned out to be dishonest and a liar. I told my Lt. that I refused to work with him. An investigation opened up over his issues that week and he was fired. I can't open up an investigation the command staff does that.

Did I have some influence? I would like to think so but it really came down to what they could prove and not my feelings on the person.

Quoted:
GBI doesn't pull punches.  If they investigated it, I would like to read the report before saying they didn't do a good job.  They have no issue locking up cops and have done it numerous times.

It's hard to believe GBI would totally skip something as basic as speaking to the CI.  

Something isn't right.  


The part below that about the previous shooting is inaccurate.  The guy was caught getting a BJ from a hooker and ran.  He wasn't trying to win her to Christianity.  The officer hadn't requalled with his pistol and was due for release n-service...not a huge deal like he is making it out to be.  Happens all the time and people still work.  

Quoted:


Lazy police work.  Gives everyone else a bad name.  



She would have had to know that once they make the arrest, they would have to prove that there were buys from there.

Quoted:
Is this the same one where they burned the shit out of the baby on a bogus warrant and then refused to pay the 6 figure medical bills that the family incurred?

Quoted:
Lazy police work.  Gives everyone else a bad name.  

She would have had to know that once they make the arrest, they would have to prove that there were buys from there.

Quoted:



Trying to run over a cop is lethal force.  

Quoted:
GBI doesn't pull punches.  If they investigated it, I would like to read the report before saying they didn't do a good job.  They have no issue locking up cops and have done it numerous times.

It's hard to believe GBI would totally skip something as basic as speaking to the CI.  

Something isn't right.  


The part below that about the previous shooting is inaccurate.  The guy was caught getting a BJ from a hooker and ran.  He wasn't trying to win her to Christianity.  The officer hadn't requalled with his pistol and was due for release n-service...not a huge deal like he is making it out to be.  Happens all the time and people still work.  

Quoted:



So you're saying they investigated themselves?