Justice For Julian Lewis: Use-Of-Force Experts Question Decision Not To Prosecute Trooper Who Killed Black Driver
Source: 11Alive / Hall & Lampros, LLP
A new investigation by AP has uncovered never-before-released dashcam video of the police shooting of Julian Lewis, which is raising questions about how the trooper avoided prosecution.
In 2020, Lewis, a 60-year-old Black man, was shot in the forehead by Jake Thompson during a traffic stop that ended with Lewis’ car in a ditch and a bullet in his head.
The video obtained by AP has never been made public. According to the publication, the 2020 video was first received by the authors of a new book about race and economic inequality titled Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap. The book’s authors then shared the video with AP, who verified its authenticity.
The video doesn’t show the actual shooting, but it does reveal the final moments of the incident in which Thompson uses a police maneuver to force Lewis’ vehicle to crash in a ditch. Thompson then yells at Lewis, “Hey, get your hands up!” Shortly after a gunshot sounds even before Thompson can finish his warning.
AP also obtained additional documents under Georgia’s open-records law.
The documents revealed that Thompson fired at Lewis just 1.6 seconds after his cruiser stopped.
Andrew Scott, a former Boca Raton, Florida, police chief and expert on police chases called out Thompson’s tactics during his altercation with Lewis.
“This guy just came out shooting,” he told AP. He continued, saying that Thompson never gave Lewis “remotely sufficient time to respond.”
Former Baltimore police lieutenant and use-of-force expert, Charles “Joe” Key, called Thompson’s decisions stupid. “This goes beyond a stupid mistake,” he told AP.
Key also called out Thompson’s claim that he shot Lewis because of the revving engine, calling it total garbage.”
“I’m not in favor of people running from the police,” Key told AP. “But it doesn’t put him in the category of people deserving to be shot by the police.”
On Aug. 7, 2020, Julian Lewis was shot dead by Georgia state trooper Jacob Thompson following a chase in Screven County. Now, attorneys for Lewis’ widow, Betty Lewis, said Thompson had pulled Julian over for a broken taillight that wasn’t actually broken. The attorneys also said Lewis wasn’t attempting to run from the police, he was simply waiting until he felt safe enough to pull over.
“It is believed that Lewis was attempting to drive toward a more familiar area where he knew other people would be present—a practice commonly taught to people who may feel vulnerable in isolated areas where there is nobody else present to witness events,” lawyers with Hall & Lampros, LLP said in a statement. “Lewis activated his turn signals in both directions, which is often a sign of acknowledgment to an officer.”
Thompson was fired and arrested a week after the shooting. Less than a year later, a state grand jury declined to indict the trooper and the case was closed after federal prosecutors declined civil rights charges.
Lewis’ son, Brook Bacon, called the decision “inadequate.”
“I thought the shortcomings that occurred at the state level would be more thoroughly examined at the federal level, but that’s apparently not the case, he told AP.
In 2022, the family of Julian Lewis reached a $4.8 million record-breaking settlement with the state of Georgia. Although it was much-needed retribution for the death of Julian Lewis it will never bring him back.
Lewis’ family worry the lack of charges will mean that people will forget about his death, which could lead to something like this happening again.
“It’s hard for anybody to even reach back that far, especially if they didn’t hear about it initially,” Brook Bacon said. “But these issues haven’t gone away.”
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