From your lips to God's ear, eh? Luckily, not everywhere is so willing to worship and advocate the actions of the all-mighty God-state, as you seem to.
Posted on 04/30/2007 10:37:19 PM PDT by FreedomCalls
Feds detail woman's death, officers' plea
Published on: 04/27/07
According to federal documents released Thursday, these are the events that led to Kathryn Johnston's death and the steps the officers took to cover their tracks.
Three narcotics agents were trolling the streets near the Bluffs in northwest Atlanta, a known market for drugs, midday on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
Eventually they set their sights on some apartments on Lanier Street, usually fertile when narcotics agents are looking for arrests and seizures.
Gregg Junnier and another narcotics officer went inside the apartments around 2 p.m. while Jason Smith checked the woods. Smith found dozens of bags of marijuana — in baggies that were clear, blue or various other colors and packaged to sell. With no one connected to the pot, Smith stashed the bags in the trunk of the patrol car. A use was found for Smith's stash 90 minutes later: A phone tip led the three officers to a man in a "gold-colored jacket" who might be dealing. The man, identified as X in the documents but known as Fabian Sheats, spotted the cops and put something in his mouth. They found no drugs on Sheats, but came up with a use for the pot they found earlier.
They wanted information or they would arrest Sheats for dealing.
While Junnier called for a drug-sniffing dog, Smith planted some bags under a rock, which the K-9 unit found.
But if Sheats gave them something, he could walk.
Sheats pointed out 933 Neal St., the home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston. That, he claimed, is where he spotted a kilogram of cocaine when he was there to buy crack from a man named "Sam."
They needed someone to go inside, but Sheats would not do for their purposes because he was not a certified confidential informant.
So about 5:05 p.m. they reached out by telephone to Alex White to make an undercover buy for them. They had experience with White and he had proved to be a reliable snitch.
But White had no transportation and could not help.
Still, Smith, Junnier and the other officer, Arthur Tesler, according to the state's case, ran with the information. They fabricated all the right answers to persuade a magistrate to give them a no-knock search warrant.
By 6 p.m., they had the legal document they needed to break into Kathryn Johnston's house, and within 40 minutes they were prying off the burglar bars and using a ram to burst through the elderly woman's front door. It took about two minutes to get inside, which gave Johnston time to retrieve her rusty .38 revolver.
Tesler was at the back door when Junnier, Smith and the other narcotics officers crashed through the front.
Johnston got off one shot, the bullet missing her target and hitting a porch roof. The three narcotics officers answered with 39 bullets.
Five or six bullets hit the terrified woman. Authorities never figured out who fired the fatal bullet, the one that hit Johnston in the chest. Some pieces of the other bullets — friendly fire — hit Junnier and two other cops.
The officers handcuffed the mortally wounded woman and searched the house.
There was no Sam.
There were no drugs.
There were no cameras that the officers had claimed was the reason for the no-knock warrant.
Just Johnston, handcuffed and bleeding on her living room floor.
That is when the officers took it to another level. Three baggies of marijuana were retrieved from the trunk of the car and planted in Johnston's basement. The rest of the pot from the trunk was dropped down a sewage drain and disappeared.
The three began getting their stories straight.
The next day, one of them, allegedly Tesler, completed the required incident report in which he wrote that the officers went to the house because their informant had bought crack at the Neal Street address. And Smith turned in two bags of crack to support that claim.
They plotted how they would cover up the lie.
They tried to line up one of their regular informants, Alex White, the reliable snitch with the unreliable transportation.
The officers' story would be that they met with White at an abandoned carwash Nov. 21 and gave him $50 to make the buy from Neal Street.
To add credibility to their story, they actually paid White his usual $30 fee for information and explained to him how he was to say the scenario played out if asked. An unidentified store owner kicked in another $100 to entice White to go along with the play.
The three cops spoke several times, assuring each other of the story they would tell.
But Junnier was the first to break.
On Dec. 11, three weeks after the shooting, Junnier told the FBI it was all a lie.
So anyone can give the address of an innocent person and thereby lead the authorities to conduct an unannounced plainclothes entry. The resident may then give resistance, thinking it to be a home invasion. The consequences of self defense are then tragic.
Gotta give KantianBurke credit......the third post on that page:
After Ramparts, I’d bet money the cops realized their error and planted said evidence.
Freaking spot on.
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You got that right Nate. It was a bullseye for Kant. So much for the crowd who whined, “wait for the evidence...reserve judgment....wait for the evidence.”
Well the evidence is in.
“Howdy TNP! Good question. I was going to ping you as I just found this thread. I see you beat me again.”
Hey guy. I found it just this morning before I headed out. I planned to ping you when I got home tonight. I remembered beltfed, but couldn’t recall the number 308 and figured I would research it tonight. But I see you are already on it too. We knew it stunk from the gitgo. I didn’t even begin to fathom the depth of their depravation. Now we know.
These guys should never see the light of day again. Matter of fact, they should be tried for murder and if appropriate, given the death penalty, just like they did to some innocent old lady.
Then the families should sue the pants off everyone involved and live happily ever after. I’m no fan of winning life’s lottery in most cases, but this? No one could make this stuff up.
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Like I told beltfed308, I hadn’t even begun to fathom the depth of their depravation. My sentiments are the same as yours on this one.
If true, these three sons of bitches need to be executed as an example to any other cowboy cops that worry more about their arrest records than citizens rights.
No doubt many of the Gestapo's informants who routinely turned in those who were Jewish would have felt the same way in their day.
But what I stated was not a personal attacks, profanity, vulgarity, threat, nor racial or religious bigotry. It is my observation as to what will very likely happen to those criminals with badges once their fellow inmates remind them that their previous belief that we cannot break the law; we are the law was not exactly the case.
No doubt many of the Gestapo's informants who routinely turned in those who were Jewish would have felt the same way in their day.
But what I stated was not a personal attacks, profanity, vulgarity, threat, nor racial or religious bigotry. It is my observation as to what will very likely happen to those criminals with badges once their fellow inmates remind them that their previous belief that we cannot break the law; we are the law was not exactly the case.
“certified confidential informant”
Do you get to carry a card in your wallet or hang a shingle outside your door with this?
You are calling for archy’s ouster after being here only a few months?
He stated his opinion.
Why don’t you stick around for a few years and learn something before you shoot your mouth off.
Sure... especially criminals.
So are you going to FINALLY admit that maybe these cops were in the wrong?
From your lips to God's ear, eh? Luckily, not everywhere is so willing to worship and advocate the actions of the all-mighty God-state, as you seem to.
Archy was spot on. Thuggery and lawlessness from those who are taxed with carrying out said laws should be held to a higher criminal penalty. They have greater responsibility and should pay a higher price for abandoning it and committing crimes themselves.
Same goes for those who pass the laws and those in the courts who uphold them.
If not, then we may as well finish burying the Constitution for corruption unchecked leads to revolution.
Hehhe... This I gotta see... Think you’ll get a cogent response?
Why a Grand Jury hasn't been empaneled to charge them under 18 USC 242 is beyond me. These creeps are clearly guilty of conspiring to deprive a citizen of her lawful civil rights in a manner which led to her death.
The above Statute clearly provides for death as a punishment for such actions.
Sadly I'm afraid we'll have to be satisfied with the high probability that these murderers won't live to see the end of their sentences but will most likely meet violent ends in the prison showers.
L
"It's not about the truth, it's about what you can prove"
-Training Day
So apply for mod job ... oh wait ... you're the N00B
To say nothing of many traffic patrol officers...and meter maids, mall security, hall monitors....
Are you going to answer this?
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