DeKalb DA Promises Civil Grand Juries for Officer-Involved Shootings

Sign up for the Decatur-Avondale Estates Patch newsletter!

---

DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James says that he will strongly consider opinions rendered by newly-empaneled civil grand juries when his office decides whether to indict police officers for killing civilians.

Each grand jury will sit for a two month period, but will first undergo use-of-force training to gain a proper frame of reference when ruling on officer-involved shootings. James told WSB-TV that he plans to give all available evidence to the grand juries and will also allow the grand juries to hear testimony from witnesses involved in each incident.

The decisions will not be binding, but they will be publicly recorded and James will use their decisions to help decide if indictments should be handed down; A civil grand jury recently recommended indicting Avondale Estates police sergeant Lynn Thomas for the killing of Jayvis Benjamin in 2013, and James says he will be pursuing the case with an official indictment.

Other officer-involved shootings the grand juries will look at are the killings of Kevin Davis and Anthony Hill, who were both shot by DeKalb County police.

On Dec. 29, Officer Joseph Pitts shot and killed Kevin Davis after Pitts allegedly killed Davis’ dog. Davis had called 911 to report that his roommate had stabbed his girlfriend, and he said he assumed that the gunshots he heard came from the roommate returning to the apartment complex off of Covington Highway.

The shots were fired by Pitts, who killed Davis’ dog after it tried to attack him, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said.

Davis was armed, intent on protecting his girlfriend, but he never brought his firearm to bear on the officer, DeKalb’s police chief Dr. Cedric Alexander said. After Davis refused to drop the gun, Pitts shot and killed him.

On March 9, Officer Robert Olson confronted a naked man who was acting strangely at The Heights at Chamblee apartments. The naked man, 27-year-old Anthony Hill, was an Air Force veteran who had admitted to having mental health issues. According to Alexander, Hill rushed Olson, who fired at the oncoming man after he refused orders to stop. Hill was unarmed.

Alexander has requested that the GBI take over the investigations of both shootings in order to provide a transparent and unbiased outcome.

So far, the civil grand juries have ruled on over 10 of the 21 officer-involved shootings recorded in DeKalb County since 2010, WSB-TV says.