Grand jury to decide charges in police shooting of a Toccoa minister

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A north Georgia prosecutor said Tuesday he would let a grand jury decide if there will be criminal charges brought against undercover drug officers involved in the fatal shooting of a Baptist minister outside a Toccoa convenience store last summer.

Brian Rickman --  district attorney for the Mountain Judicial Circuit, which includes Stephens, Rabun and Habersham counties -- said in an interview with AJC.com that he also offered to remove himself from the case and he invited a former DA and a sitting prosecutor to review the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s findings and to sit in on all judicial proceedings.

“The more eyes, the better," Rickman told AJC.com.

“I want to make sure it’s as transparent” and as “fair” as possible, Rickman said.

Around 2:30 p.m. on  Sept. 1, Ayers dropped off a woman on a Toccoa street and then drove to a nearby Shell station to use the ATM inside the convenience store.

Ayers, who was a pastor at Shoal Creek Baptist Church, was not the target of a drug investigation but three members of a northeast Georgia tri-county drug task force wanted to talk to him all the same. They did not recognize the 29-year-old minister, but the woman who was in his car moments earlier had twice bought drugs from task force members.

But when the agents pulled up, blocking Ayers’ car, the seemingly frightened minister tried to drive away.

Stephens County Sheriff Randy Shirley said at the time that Ayers backed his car into one agent and then a second one fired on Ayers because the minister maneuvered his car toward the officer in a "threatening manner."

Witnesses they didn’t know the officers were law enforcement until they shouted that they were police.

Ayers crashed into a utility pole down the street, and he died later that day after surgery.

Rickman said he got the GBI report about three weeks ago and the agency’s findings would not be made public as long as the case was pending.

Rickman said he expected to have the grand jury’s decision by the end of this month.