Deputies Accused Of Shooting Into House

POSTED: 10:13 am EDT July 18, 2007
UPDATED: 10:49 am EDT July 18, 2007

HIAWASSEE, Ga. -- Two deputies in northeast Georgia have been arrested on charges of shooting into a house.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent John Cagle says 41-year-old Towns County Chief Sheriff's Deputy Eddie Osborn and 56-year-old Deputy Jessie Gibson are accused of shooting into the house with two people inside earlier this month. He says about ten shots were fired into the house.

Both are charged with aggravated assault and other charges. Both are being held in the Lumpkin County Jail.

www.wsbtv.com/news/13703920/detail.html

I wish they wouldn't inundate me with information like that.   I'm only human.

So what is up with Atlanta metro area LEOs?

Towns County sheriff charged with cover-up in shooting
GBI says Rudy Eller admitted he helped hide deputy's gun

By RHONDA COOK
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution
Published on: 07/31/07

The Towns County sheriff has been released on $250,000 bond on charges he tried cover up for his chief deputy, who is accused to shooting up the house of his wife's lover.

According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Sheriff Rudy Eller turned himself in at the White County Detention Center Tuesday morning. He is charged with tampering with evidence, making false statements, obstruction, hindering the apprehension of a criminal and violation of his oath of office.

According to an affidavit used to bring the charges, Gary Dean had told Eller earlier this month that he was afraid of Chief Deputy Eddie Osborn because of his relationship with Osborn's wife, Michelle. Dean reported 10 shots fired at his house in Towns County on July 9 and said he believed Osborn was responsible.

Eller asked the GBI to investigate and subsequently Osborn and Towns County Deputy Jesse Gibson were arrested.

But as the GBI was doing its investigation, Osborn tried to convince agents that he didn't have the gun linked to the bullets that had been recovered.

Osborn reportedly said the sheriff had kept the .40-caliber semi-automatic for several months and Eller backed him up.

The sheriff eventually changed his story, admitting that he did not have the gun before the shooting and he agreed to help Eller "hide it." Eller allegedly told the GBI he cleaned the gun and then used duct tape to hide it in a secret compartment in his bedroom dresser.

Eller told agents he knew who had shot at Dean's house even before he called in the GBI.




Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/stories/2007/07/31/sheriff_0731.html

The sheriff eventually changed his story, admitting that he did not have the gun before the shooting and he agreed to help Eller "hide it." Eller allegedly told the GBI he cleaned the gun and then used duct tape to hide it in a secret compartment in his bedroom dresser.

There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  

just for variety and to throw everybody a curve, you should randomly post a story about a cop stopping and helping a kitten across the street or a cop giving directions to a lost tourist.  


j/k  sorta  

As to the posted story, sounds bad, not much info there.

www.accessnorthga.com/news/hall/newfullstory.asp?ID=116045

Towns Co. sheriff charged in shooting in Hiawassee
By The Associated Press

HIAWASSEE - The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says Towns County Sheriff Rudy Eller has been charged in connection with a shooting earlier this month at a home in Hiawassee.

Eller is charged with tampering with evidence, making false statements, obstruction, hindering the apprehension of a criminal and violation of his oath of office.

He turned himself in to GBI agents at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the White County Detention Center in Cleveland.

Bond is set at $250-thousand.

The GBI says the charges stem from the firing of gunshots into a residence on July ninth. Two Towns County sheriff's deputies were charged July 17th in connection with the shooting.

dumbasses

Not so much being bad cops, as being major asswipes.

Juicy saga appalls, amuses Towns locals
No longer like Mayberry: Mountain community abuzz as infidelity, gunfire, cover-up allegations threaten to bring down sheriff, chief deputy.

By JEFFRY SCOTT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/06/07

Hiawassee — For years, residents of this Georgia mountain town have complained that things aren't like they used to be. For the past month, they've watched things get downright weird.

Around midnight on July 9, somebody pulled up in front of Gary Dean's home and started shooting. Bullets tore through his front door and whizzed passed his head. Dean dove behind a bed in the back room and reached for a pistol, but the shooter drove off and left Dean to thank his strange luck.

He would have been dead, Dean said, if he hadn't left the kitchen just before the shooting and gone into the back bedroom to mess with a stubborn DVD player.

"I'd a-took one right here," he said, pointing at his left side as he showed a reporter around his shot-up home, where 12 bullet holes had been spray-painted orange by GBI investigators. "Another bullet would have got me somewhere in the head."

The shooting was the opening act of a saga that has folks here flummoxed as it takes more twists and turns than a mountain creek.

About a week after the shooting, authorities charged Eddie Osborn, the chief deputy of the Towns County Sheriff's Office, with aggravated assault in the attack on Dean. They also charged fellow Deputy Jesse Gibson, who allegedly drove the car that night, with aggravated assault.

Then, last week, Sheriff Rudy Eller was charged with evidence-tampering, violation of his oath of office and related offenses after admitting he lied to GBI investigators and hid evidence to protect Osborn. On Friday, Gov. Sonny Perdue named a panel to recommend whether Eller should be suspended. None of the men, all released on bond, has commented on the charges.

But the details released by the GBI when it announced the arrest of Eller — including the revelation that Osborn shot up Dean's home because Dean was having an "ongoing intimate relationship" with Osborn's wife, Michelle — added titillation to a story that already had engaged townspeople as thoroughly as theater in the round.

Demand for every tidbit is so great the local weekly newspaper, The Towns Sentinel, has doubled its press runs since the shooting, said publisher Becky Landress, as she loaded the latest edition (headline: "Sheriff arrested, but remains sheriff") into a news box outside the Huddle House restaurant late last week.

"People come in here asking for back issues, the first stories, like they're trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle," Landress said. "It's a sad story — but it's been great for business."

Inside the restaurant, it was obvious why. Regulars joked about running for sheriff now that time appears to be running out for Eller who, they said, for 11 years has run an office that played favorites and pushed people around.

"You know what they say about the sheriff's office around here?" said Rex Johnson, 57, who has lived in Towns County all his life. "You're either for them — or they're against you."

Locals are half-appalled and half-amused by the seeming tragi-comedy.

It was Eller, after all, who called the GBI to investigate the shooting at Dean's house. But Eller already knew who did the shooting when he called the GBI, and he already had hidden evidence, according to a GBI affidavit. That means, the GBI says, that the first thing Eller did when investigators showed up was lie to them.

And his attempt to hide evidence seemed bungling at best. Hiawassee sits on Lake Chatuge and is surrounded by forested mountains.

Did Eller dump the evidence in the lake or bury it in the woods? No. According to the GBI, he put the pistol barrel Osborn gave him, which connects Osborn to the shooting, in a baggie and duct-taped it inside a hidden compartment in his bedroom dresser. GBI agents retrieved it after he admitted lying and hiding the evidence, the agency said.

GBI Investigator John Cagle said he thinks Eller called the GBI into the case to avoid being suspected of a coverup. If so, he underestimated Cagle and his investigators.

"I think he [Eller] thought we wouldn't discover that Osborn owned the gun used in the shooting," Cagle said. "But we knew from talking to other people at the sheriff's office that he [Osborn] owned the pistol."

Some townspeople think the case shows how the town has changed and is no longer as insular as it once was — a place where the sheriff, after the county commissioner, could fairly well do what he wanted.

Towns County's population has almost doubled over the past 30 years as outsiders, many from Atlanta, have built homes perched along the lake and surrounding mountains.

The Georgia Mountain Restaurant has long been a favorite eating spot in this town of about 1,000, which lies about 110 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, but there's now a sushi bar up the road.

Where the Cowboy Church ("Rounding Up Souls For Jesus)" once was the spiritual touchstone on one stretch of main street, it now has competition from Bacchus — A Wine Shoppe. Stores such as Britt & Capri and resorts such as the Ridges Resort & Club cater to affluent locals and visitors.

Cultural issues aside, Rudy Roach, a former sheriff who plans to run to replace Eller, said the sheriff's office and jail simply need cleaning up.

"Ajax needs to come to town," he said. "And I'm bringing it."

District Attorney Stan Gunter said he's saddened by the strange turn of events because he's worked with Eller and his deputies in prosecuting cases over the years. He said he will take the cases to the grand jury, probably when it next meets in September. If he wins indictments and the cases go to court, the story will take more turns and The Towns Sentinal will sell more newspapers.

The place won't be the same, but it hasn't been the same for a long time, said Michael Myers, a welder who has lived in Towns County three decades.

"This place used to be Mayberry," he said, sitting at the bar at the posh Old Hiawassee Grille. "But it ain't no more."



Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/08/05/sherifftowns_0806.html

Panel to decide if Towns sheriff should be suspended

By RHONDA COOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/03/07

Gov. Sonny Perdue has appointed a three-man panel to decide if the Towns County Sheriff should be removed while charges are pending that he lied to state officers to covered an alleged crime by two of his top deputies.

Perdue signed an order Friday appointing Attorney General Thurbert Baker and Sheriffs Roger Garrison of Cherokee County and Steve Wilson of Walker County to decide if Towns County Sheriff Rudy Eller should be suspended with pay while the charges are resolved. The law requires that the attorney general and two sheriffs investigate for 30 days to decide if a sheriff suspected of committing a crime is able to carry out the duties of the office while they are resolved.

Eller was arrested Tuesday on five felony charges for lying and hiding a gun allegedly used by Chief Deputy Eddie Osborn and deputy Jesse Gibson to shoot up the house of Osborn's wife's lover.

District Attorney Stanley Grunter said he would ask a local grand jury to look at the allegations against Eller, Osborn and Gibson. If he is indicted, state law requires that the sheriff be suspended with pay.

The sheriff eventually changed his story, admitting that he did not have the gun before the shooting and he agreed to help Eller "hide it."

I need the other side of the story before I can make a judgment.  Anyone can confess.

I wonder how many other cops nation-wide protect/cover-up crimes for their "brothers"?

Quoted: I wonder how many other cops nation-wide protect/cover-up crimes for their "brothers"?

Lots and lots and lots and lots of very rare and isolated incidents.

Thread is worthless w/o pics. Is there a full set of teeth between the love triangle?

they been watchin LAPD

   Don't mess with mountain folks wives.

   I'm really surprised the "victim" didn't just dissappear all together. Must have been a spur of the moment kind of thing.

Sounds like a good shoot, but I have to wait to hear both sides of the story.

Quoted: The sheriff eventually changed his story, admitting that he did not have the gun before the shooting and he agreed to help Eller "hide it." Eller allegedly told the GBI he cleaned the gun and then used duct tape to hide it in a secret compartment in his bedroom dresser. There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.

There isn't, otherwise you would never hear about this story.

Quoted: The sheriff eventually changed his story, admitting that he did not have the gun before the shooting and he agreed to help Eller "hide it." Eller allegedly told the GBI he cleaned the gun and then used duct tape to hide it in a secret compartment in his bedroom dresser. There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.

Click your ruby heels together Dorothy and you too can visit the Wizard of Oz.

Sucks to be a dumbass.

Oh and never ever fuck a cops wife.

Quoted: Sucks to be a dumbass. Oh and never ever fuck a cops wife.

I don't know about that, looks like he was getting the pie, the city will pay for some home renovations, and the ex will be locked away out of his hair for many years, sound almost ideal.

Quoted: Oh and never ever fuck a cops wife.

Why is it different than fucking say a factory workers wife?

Quoted: Oh and never ever fuck a cops wife.

Why?

Quoted: Sounds like a good shoot, but I have to wait to hear both sides of the story.

You consider fucking a guy's wife grounds for a justified shooting?

That statement has DU fodder written all over it.  

Quoted: Quoted: Oh and never ever fuck a cops wife. Why is it different than fucking say a factory workers wife?

The chance of a person getting beat up or shot from what I have seen goes up tremendously compared to factory workers, fast food employees, etc.

Oh and if you are a cop don't fuck another cops wife, either. The running gun battle does not play well on tv for the rest of us.

"This place used to be Mayberry," he said, sitting at the bar at the posh Old Hiawassee Grille. "But it ain't no more."

 That's because 'Barney' got into the bullet-box -- and married someone from out of town.

Quoted: The chance of a person getting beat up or shot from what I have seen goes up tremendously compared to factory workers, fast food employees, etc.

Why is this?

Quoted: Oh and never ever fuck a cops wife.

A slice taken from a cut loaf won't be missed.

Quoted: Quoted: Sounds like a good shoot, but I have to wait to hear both sides of the story. You consider fucking a guy's wife grounds for a justified shooting? That statement has DU fodder written all over it.

Quoted: Quoted: The chance of a person getting beat up or shot from what I have seen goes up tremendously compared to factory workers, fast food employees, etc. Why is this?

Because cops know lots of criminals that need favors done from time to time. And if they get caught, who are you going to complain to?

Quoted: Quoted: The chance of a person getting beat up or shot from what I have seen goes up tremendously compared to factory workers, fast food employees, etc. Why is this?

LEO's in general are VERY territorial. Do not mess with their family.

Quoted: Quoted: Sucks to be a dumbass. Oh and never ever fuck a cops wife. Why not this guy is going to sue and get a lot of money.  Hell he gets money and the cops wife. I just hope they are nice and provide jack off material for the former police officers boyfriend you know a picture or two to let the former cop know what his wife is now drinking.  I hope cops get extra rape in prison.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Sounds like a good shoot, but I have to wait to hear both sides of the story. You consider fucking a guy's wife grounds for a justified shooting? That statement has DU fodder written all over it.

Why do you keep u'seen dat ?  I do no thin' it means wha' you thin' it means...

I've seen cops get pretty pissed during divorces..just FYI everyone.

Even had a police officer shoot himself "just to wound" claiming he had been shot by a "black guy" and it was later determined that he had shot himself (video caught is from CCTV camera), because he was stressed about his divorce.

You never know what folks will do during a divorce.

Quoted: The sheriff eventually changed his story, admitting that he did not have the gun before the shooting and he agreed to help Eller "hide it." Eller allegedly told the GBI he cleaned the gun and then used duct tape to hide it in a secret compartment in his bedroom dresser. There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.

Secret compartment in a dresser?????   What else was the officer hiding?

Quoted: You consider fucking a guy's wife grounds for a justified shooting?

uh, yea..

Quoted: Quoted: You consider fucking a guy's wife grounds for a justified shooting? uh, yea..

To shoot the guy, or the wife, or both?

I used to work for the Town's county sheriff's office....lets just say that it is a fucked up organization..and as for Rudy Roach replacing rudy eller....he's no better!  When he was sheriff he was fucking one of the towns business owners wife!!  

Quoted: So what is up with Atlanta metro area LEOs?

That place definately isn't metro atlanta!!!

Quoted: Quoted: The sheriff eventually changed his story, admitting that he did not have the gun before the shooting and he agreed to help Eller "hide it." Eller allegedly told the GBI he cleaned the gun and then used duct tape to hide it in a secret compartment in his bedroom dresser. There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.  There is no thin blue line.   Secret compartment in a dresser?????   What else was the officer hiding?

Just the usual evidence all cops hide in there house you know standard stuff.  If you want details fine a knife used to stab a cheating lover, gun used to shoot a cheating lover, Marijuana used for medical use (wink, wink), bloody gloves used to frame black men, Chain steering wheel used to frame hispanic men, stolen anything also used to frame hispanic men, stolen gun used for various framing purposes, bribe money lots of bribe money, the body of a witness who saw to much and last but not least the dope used to calm the cop before he takes care of things for the higher ups.

Did I miss anything?

So let me get this straight.

The chief offers to cover up for the officer.

He takes the gun and puts it in his secret compartment (rather than destroy the weapon), then he rats off his fellow officer who he promised to help.

So, he's not only a criminal (if we take this little tale as true) but he is also a rat.

Seems like criminals are declining in competence.  I have a hard time believing that in 1960 they would have been so easy to flip and trip.

Quoted: Towns County sheriff's Deputy Jessie Gibson and Chief Deputy Eddie Osborn, 41, were charged with aggravated assault and obstruction of justice in the July 9 shooting at the home of Gary Dean, 51, who was having an affair with the wife of Osborn, according to a GBI affidavit. Gibson was found dead at his home Aug. 8 of a gunshot wound to the head, which the GBI declared an apparent suicide. He left an audiotape message for his family that was turned over to the GBI. Find this article at: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/08/20/towns_0821.html

Bye