Attorneys for the parents of a man fatally shot by Smyrna police said Thursday that running from law enforcement should not warrant a death sentence.
Nicholas Thomas, 25, was at work Tuesday at the Goodyear on Cumberland Parkway when confronted by a heavy contingent of police serving an arrest warrant for a probation violation. Smyrna police said officers shot Thomas in self defense because he was speeding toward them in a customer's Maserati.
Attorney Mawuli Davis, representing Thomas’ parents, said it’s unlikely the outcome would have been fatal had the suspect not been African-American.
Thomas became the second unarmed man to die at the hands of a metro Atlanta police officer this month. Afghanistan war veteran Anthony Hill, 27, was shot twice in the chest March 9 by a DeKalb police officer responding to a report of a suspicious person. Hill, who suffered from bipolar disorder, was allegedly charging the officer and was shot after ignoring commands to stop.
The official account of Thomas’ shooting was disputed Thursday during an emotional press conference attended by the victim’s parents and other family members, including his 5-month-old daughter.
While acknowledging Thomas may have attempted to flee the scene, Davis said there was nowhere for him to go because police had blocked the exit.
Davis noted that the shots were fired as Thomas was passing the officers.
“Cars can’t move right to left,” he said. “If you can step out of the way to avoid injury, is your life still in danger?”
A witness, who asked not to be identified out of safety concerns, also questioned assertions by the officers that their safety was threatened.
“If they were in imminent danger, why were they shooting so close to the car?” the witness, who lives in the area, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
According to Smyrna Police Sgt. E.R. Cason, Thomas jumped into a white, four-door Maserati and drove around the building several times at a high rate of speed after spotting the heavy law enforcement presence.
That prompted an officer to fire into the moving car, which then came to a stop. Officers then ordered Thomas out of the car but received no response, Cason said.
“Due to heavy window tint on the vehicle, officers could not see into the car,” Cason said. “Thus, the officers used less than lethal bean bag rounds in an attempt to break out the passenger side window and look into the car. This was done to increase visibility into the vehicle with the ultimate goal of ensuring officer safety and rendering first aid to Mr. Thomas.”
Davis’ co-counsel, Robert Bozeman, said Thomas was not circling the building in the Maserati, as police allege, but instead was driving it to a service dock.
It’s unclear whether surveillance cameras at the Goodyear store captured the incident. Cobb police, who provided back-up for the Smyrna officers but did not fire their weapons, are investigating the incident.
“The investigation is in the wrong hands,” Davis said. “How can you have Cobb do the investigation when they were a part of it?”
Davis formally requested the probe be turned over to the GBI, which is investigating the shooting of Hill.
Thomas had numerous arrests in several metro Atlanta jurisdictions, according to public documents. In the last two years, he had been put on probation twice, for a drug charge and making false statements and for aggravated assault against a police officer. In the latter case, he was accused of “driving and accelerating” his car in the direction of Kennesaw State University Police Officer S.A. Feinauer, who had attempted to stop him for speeding.
Family members acknowledged his checkered past but insisted he was not a violent person.
“Nicholas was a great kid,” his mother, Felicia Thomas, said. “I don’t think my son died in vain. No one should be shot dead like an animal.”
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