A Georgia grand jury has declined to indict a former state trooper who fatally shot and killed a black man after driving his car off the road during a vehicle chase in August 2020.
Screven County’s 22-person grand jury returned a no-bill Monday afternoon, declining to indict 27-year-old Georgia State Patrol officer Jacob Gordon Thompson for the shooting of 60-year-old Julian Lewis.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation charged Thompson with the murder last August after an investigation found he had no legal right to shoot Lewis.
Judge Gates Peed agreed with the GBI that Thompson should be charged with the murder of Lewis, as the police officer’s allegation that Lewis tried to hit him with his vehicle was found to be false after an expert concluded that Lewis’ car in a ditch was inoperable after leaving the road and could not be used to harm Thompson.
A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent alleged that footage from the dash camera contradicts a report by former Georgia State trooper Jacob Thompson (left) who fatally shot and killed Julian Lewis (right) in August. (Photo: Screven County Sheriff’s Office / Francys Johnson)
According to a GBI agent, a second passed when Thompson took his foot off the brake of his vehicle and got out to shoot Lewis in the forehead.
The same evidence was presented to the grand jury as Peed, but after a day of testimony from District Attorney Daphne Totten – testimony that included Thompson accompanied by his attorney presenting his own side of the case – the panel found there was nothing sufficient evidence to support the grand jury Let the case move to litigation, a result that upset and anger the Lewis family and their representatives.
Brook Bacon, Lewis’ son, responded to the jury’s decision by saying, “I am shocked and incredulous. What the grand jury did today was worse than what Jacob Gordon Thompson did when he shot my father in the head. It was murder when Thompson killed my father. But what that district attorney and the grand jury killed is every belief black people can have in this justice system. ”
The no law means that the grand jury did not recommend bringing the charges to justice, but it doesn’t mean that the charges will inevitably be dropped.
On August 7, 2020, Thompson attempted to stop a Nissan Sentra for a traffic violation in Screven County. When the driver refused to stop, Thompson performed a maneuver that forced the vehicle off the road and into a nearby ditch. Thompson then got out of the vehicle and shot Lewis, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Thompson was arrested a week later for murder and aggravated assault.
Francys Johnson, one of the family’s attorneys, wants the case to be reviewed by another grand jury. “We are requesting that the prosecution take this to another grand jury, as they are legally entitled to do,” she said.
Mawuli Davis, an Atlanta civil rights attorney, another attorney for the Lewis family, told Atlanta Black Star on Wednesday that the no-bill result “reflects an out of control grand jury with a less-than-zealous district attorney producing such a result. Davis also said the outcome of the trial on Monday, when the discharged soldier was able to testify to the grand jury and present his side of the case – a right granted in Georgia to citizens who are or were not in law enforcement – was lawful shows but that with such blatant miscarriages of justice, sustained pressure from the broader community must be exerted.
Prosecutor Totten, who was accused of “grand jury shopping” by Thompson’s attorneys after delaying her presentation of the case, wrote in a statement Monday evening that the evidence could be presented to another grand jury.
“The law provides that the district attorney can bring the evidence on the case to another grand jury in the future and that decision will be reviewed and announced at a later date,” she wrote.
