Digging deep
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Steve Visser exclusively obtained a copy of the investigative report into the Joetavius Stafford shooting. He pored over hundreds of pages of documents to recreate what happened more than a year ago and answer questions about the shooting that had been previously unanswered publicly.
The family of a 19-year-old shot to death by a MARTA police officer a year ago hope to learn Wednesday whether the officer will be held criminally responsible for his death. It’s unlikey they will like what they hear.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard is expected to meet Wednesday with the family of Joetavius “Jo Jo” Stafford. Howard has said nothing publicly about his office’s investigation into Stafford’s killing by former Officer Robert Waldo, 31. But Howard faces substantial obstacles to pressing charges against Waldo because he would first have to establish that the officer was criminally reckless.
“Proving the officer had criminal intent is a pretty high bar,” said David Klinger, a University of Missouri-St. Louis expert on police shootings.
Little about the Oct. 15, 2011, shooting of Stafford is clear, according to investigative records obtained exclusively by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Stafford at one point likely had a gun during a brawl after a high-school football game; and just as likely did not have a gun when Waldo shot him moments later.
"We believe the evidence will show that Joetavius was not armed when he was shot," said Greg Feagle, whose law firm Ballard & Feagle represents the family in a lawsuit against Waldo and MARTA. "He was an outgoing, larger-than-life guy who was well loved by his friends and neighbors. He was a good kid."
Stafford may have been a scrapper — a witness that night told investigators “Jo Jo” had removed his shirt, which he did before fighting — who backed up buddies against rivals. But the Fulton County jail shows no record for arrests; Stafford, who hailed from a tough crime- and gun-ridden neighborhood, had no criminal record, held jobs and graduated from high school, Feagle said.
Witnesses, however, put a weapon in Stafford’s hand that night — some saying he fired it in the air when threatened by a group of young men. DNA tied him to a pistol found near where he was shot, its hammer cocked, and a round in the chamber.
But the Smith & Wesson 9 mm wasn’t found on the pavement by his body. Instead, police found it in shrubs above the sidewalk from where Waldo said he spotted Stafford jumping seconds before shooting him. Stafford’s brother Rodney and other witnesses interviewed that night by GBI investigators said Joetavius was raising his arms in surrender when he was shot. Rodney Stafford said Waldo then shot his brother twice more on the ground. Other witnesses, including law officers describe a pause before the last two shots.
Not even Waldo in his statement puts the gun in Stafford’s hands when he was killed. Legally, that may not matter.
Dale Mann, then director of the Georgia Public Safety Training Center, told the AJC last year the shooting could be ruled justifiable even if Stafford was unarmed because the law requires investigators look at whether it was reasonable from the perspective of the officer, who is often placed in “tense, rapidly evolving situations.”
By almost all accounts it was a chaotic scene the night of the shooting. Waldo and other officers had converged on the Vine City MARTA rail station at about 10 p.m. to quell a street brawl involving dozens of people after a high school football game at the Georgia Dome. A shotgun and a handgun were reportedly fired among those in the crowd.
An unnamed student from Benjamin E. Mays High School, which was playing Carver High School that night, told investigators he saw fights breaking out while walking to the rail station and then he saw two young men, including Stafford, with pistols and a third with a pump shotgun. Stafford fired the pistol in the air, the student said.
Joshua Dupree, 21, told investigators he and his friends — including the Stafford brothers — were fighting a group and “Jo Jo” got a pistol from a car, according to an agent’s report. Dupree said Stafford fired after opponents taunted him to shoot.
Other witness accounts indicated Stafford’s group was heavily outnumbered and one member with the shotgun fired it, causing the crowd to scatter. Dupree, who has arrests for aggravated assault, was accused of firing the shotgun but denied having it.
Waldo, a former Marine, who left MARTA in March to take a job with Lockheed Martin in Afghanistan, told investigators he heard gunfire and saw Stafford with a pistol and pursued him toward the rail station entrance.
“Officer Waldo advised that he lost sight of Stafford for a moment and then saw him jump over the bushes and onto the sidewalk next to the street,” according to an investigative summary by GBI Special Agent Heather Strickland. “Officer Waldo advised that Stafford then turned toward him and he opened fire. Officer Waldo advised that he did not hesitate and there was no reason for Stafford to ‘square up’ on him except to kill him.”
The other witnesses generally saw Stafford as surrendering. His brother, Rodney Stafford, told Channel 2 Action News last year that someone fired a shot during the fight, prompting him and his brother to flee as police ran up.
“My brother threw his hands up. MARTA police shot him in the back. Pow,” Stafford told Channel 2. “And my brother lying on the ground, just looking at me and I was looking at his gunshot wound. As I’m looking at that, MARTA police shot him two more times in the back.”
Waldo said Stafford stopped but did not surrender after jumping to the sidewalk. “I again yelled at the suspect, ‘Police, drop the weapon. Get on the ground,’” Waldo wrote in a MARTA report. “The subject turned toward me, and I was afraid he was going to shoot me. I then fired my service revolver four times while aiming center mass of the subject’s chest.”
MARTA officials declined comment about their internal investigation. Attempts to reach Waldo were unsuccessful.
An autopsy found Stafford was wounded three times, once in the left chest, one in the left lower back and once mid-lower back.Waldo fired from an elevated position and the mid-back wound, in which the bullet hit his heart, had a slightly upward path. The autopsy could not clarify whether Stafford was on the ground when he was shot. The autopsy also found no use of illicit drugs or alcohol.
Klinger, the officer-involved-shooting expert, noted Waldo’s two complaints of excessive force in his three years on the force could be a red flag signaling an overly aggressive officer. If you have an officer who has a pattern of using force excessively and the agency didn’t do anything about it, it is not good,” Klinger said.
But he said the different shooting accounts could be explained by a difference in perception, possibly because Waldo — who told investigators he couldn’t see Stafford’s right hand — misinterpreted a movement for aggression.
“An officer doesn’t have to wait until he has a certain identification of a gun in the hand in an event like this before he shoots,” Klinger said. “I shoot. Then while I am shooting he moves to surrender mode. What everybody sees is somebody surrendering.”
Dupree told investigators he heard Waldo tell Stafford to drop the gun, and he did so “about the same time he was shot by the police officer,” according to a summary of his interrogation.
That night was the first time, he said, that he had seen Stafford with a gun.
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