The Coweta Judicial Circuit will not prosecute a Newnan police officer who shot and injured a man following a high-speed motorcycle chase last year, officials said.
District Attorney Herb Cranford made that announcement Thursday, saying that the officer was justified in using deadly force in the June 15 incident. The decision was based on interviews with the officers involved, the man who was shot and all related case files from the GBI, Cranford said.
The investigation also used audio from one responding officer’s body-worn camera, but there was no actual video footage of the shooting, Cranford said. Video from one officer’s camera showed the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Cranford said.
The officer-involved shooting happened after Georgia State Patrol troopers attempted to pull over Azavious Lavonta Echols, 25, after he was caught speeding at more than 150 mph on a motorcycle on I-85, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. Echols fled from the troopers, eventually abandoning his motorcycle behind a restaurant off Ga. 34.
Multiple law enforcement officers responded to the scene and found Echols inside a bail bonding office next door to the restaurant. When Echols came outside, two Newnan officers were facing him and another was standing to his right. The officers ordered Echols to get on the ground, but as he moved to lie down, he pulled a gun from the right side of his pants, according to Cranford’s announcement.
The Newnan officer to Echols’ right said the suspect had a gun and fired two shots at him, hitting him once in the leg. The officers immediately gave Echols first aid until emergency services arrived, Cranford said. Echols was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was discharged the following day, according to the announcement.
Echols was charged with one felony count of fleeing and attempting to elude a police officer. He pleaded guilty to that charge and Cranford’s office agreed not to pursue incarceration as a penalty.
According to the district attorney’s announcement, Cranford offered to meet with Echols to explain the justification of the shooting, but Echols declined.
According to Cranford’s announcement, the lack of body-worn camera footage was due in part to the fact that two of the officers responded after their shifts were over and had already taken their cameras off. The camera worn by the Newnan police officer who fired at Echols was active, but it was “shifted downward during the incident,” the announcement said. That camera’s audio feed was used in the investigation.
Video from a Grantville police officer’s body-worn camera was usable, but the officer was around the corner of the building at the moment of the shooting and only recorded the aftermath, Cranford said.
This case was the third officer-involved shooting within the past two years in Coweta County, the AJC reported. None of the shootings were fatal, and no law enforcement officers were charged in any of the cases.
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