DeKalb ends investigation of shooting by officer

DeKalb County prosecutors are dropping their review of a 2003 shooting by a police officer that left a knife-wielding suspect dead and resulted in the officer’s resignation.

Former county police officer Alexander Brown shot Stanley Bates to death in 2003 and resigned from the force afterward. The office of then-District Attorney J. Tom Morgan declined to prosecute Brown, but Morgan’s successor, Gwen Keyes Fleming, reopened the case last year as part of a broader investigation of a dozen more recent shootings by police.

The district attorney’s office presented evidence about the incident to the grand jury in late May. The jurors split 9-9 after when asked whether the shooting was justified and whether the criminal investigation should continue, said Orzy Theus, spokesman for Keyes Fleming.

“There was not enough evidence to continue,” Theus said. “Unless new evidence surfaces to justify reopening the case, it won’t be investigated any further.”

Theus said Brown had joined the military and was deployed, but it’s unclear where.

Bates, 35, died outside his mother’s house.

Loretta Luke called DeKalb police to her home around 3 a.m. on Feb. 2, 2003, saying Bates was trying to enter. He was shot and killed just outside her front door. Luke had obtained an arrest warrant against her son for earlier incidents, and explained later that she got the warrant so Bates, a drug addict, could sober up in jail.

Officer Brown later reported that he pulled the trigger when Bates lunged toward him with a knife, but a police department review board concluded Bates was too far away from Brown to pose an immediate threat. Brown was fired from the police department but was later allowed to resign.

Luke could not be reached for comment. She filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court and won a civil judgment of $7 million against Brown in 2007 after the former officer failed to appear in his own defense. She also sued the county, but DeKalb was dismissed as a defendant.