Politics

A Georgia State Patrol trooper has been arrested and charged with felony murder after fatally shooting a Black man during an attempted traffic stop.

Jacob Gordon Thompson, 27, was arrested on Friday in connection with the fatal officer involved shooting in Screven County that occurred on August 7, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said in a news release.

Thompson attempted to stop Julian Edward Roosevelt Lewis, 60, for a traffic-related offense. When he refused to stop, Thompson gave a brief chase before using a “precision Intervention technique,” sending the car to a stop in a ditch, according to the GBI.

Thompson then fired one shot, striking Lewis in the face. He was pronounced dead on the scene. An autopsy is being conducted at the GBI Crime Lab, according to the release.

Thompson will be booked into the Screven County Jail, the GBI release said. He has been charged with felony murder and aggravated assault and was terminated from the Department of Public Safety.

CNN has not been able to determine if Thompson has an attorney.

FBI Atlanta public affairs specialist Kevin Rowson told CNN in an emailed statement Saturday that they are in contact with local and state authorities.

“The FBI is aware of the Screven County matter and we have been in contact with local and state authorities. The FBI is always prepared to investigate whenever information comes to light of a potential federal violation,” Rowson said.

Francys Johnson, the attorney representing the Lewis family, issued a statement Friday.

As the remembrances poured in Saturday for John Lewis, the 5th Congressional District in Georgia he served for decades is left without a representative in Congress.

In June, Lewis, who ran unopposed for his 17th term in 2018, won the Democratic nomination for his seat by a resounding 87% of the vote over challenger Barrington Martin II.

But his death leaves the Georgia Democratic Party with the task of naming a nominee to face off against Republican Angela Stanton-King, a criminal justice reform advocate and former reality star, in the general election for this overwhelmingly Democratic seat.

Under Georgia law, the state executive committee of the Democratic Party can appoint a replacement nominee, according to Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs.

The party will have to inform the Georgia secretary of state’s office whether they intend to appoint a replacement by Monday, and then inform the office who their replacement nominee is shortly thereafter, Fuchs told CNN in a statement.

The Democratic Party of Georgia confirmed Saturday that its executive committee will meet on Monday at noon to consider a nominee.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Congressman John Lewis, and wish very much that we were not in this position today. The Democratic Party of Georgia takes our legal responsibility of naming a nominee to this seat seriously, and we are making every effort to honor Congressman Lewis’ legacy and the people of the Fifth District throughout this process, while working within the applicable legal framework,” said Sachin Varghese, an attorney for the party, in a Saturday night news release.

ATLANTA — Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp is explicitly banning Georgia’s cities and counties from ordering people to wear masks in public places. He voided orders on Wednesday that at least 15 local governments across the state had adopted even though Kemp had earlier said cities and counties had no power to order masks.

An increasing number of other states order residents to wear masks in public, including Alabama, which announced such a ban Wednesday.

The Republican governor has instead been trying to encourage voluntary mask wearing, including telling fans that reduced infections from mask-wearing would make college football season possible.

Kemp’s move is likely to infuriate local officials in communities that had acted, including Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah, Rome and the governor’s hometown of Athens-Clarke County. Overall, mask orders by Wednesday were covering 1.4 million of Georgia’s more than 10 million residents.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson was the first local official to defy Kemp and order masks, and had said police would start writing $500 citations to businesses that didn’t enforce the law.

“It is officially official. Governor Kemp does not give a damn about us,” Johnson wrote on Twitter Wednesday night. “Every man and woman for himself/herself. Ignore the science and survive the best you can.”

Kemp’s new order also bans local governments from requiring masks on public property, which void requirements that some governments have imposed for citizens to wear masks inside city and county buildings.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Monday declared a state of emergency and activated as many as 1,000 National Guard members.

Kemp, a Republican, said the executive order follows “weeks of dramatically increased violent crime and property destruction in the City of Atlanta.”

The governor’s statement says more than 30 Georgians were wounded by gunfire over the extended holiday weekend, including five people who died.

One of the five deaths was that of an 8-year-old girl who was shot while riding in a car with her mother and another person. Secoriea Turner was killed Saturday night as the car tried to enter a parking lot that had illegal barricades, police said.

The shooting was near the scene where a now-fired Atlanta police officer fatally shot Rayshard Brooks after he fought with officers and tried to run away with a stolen Taser.

“We’ve had over 75 shootings in the city over the past several weeks,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said when talking about the 8-year-old’s death on Sunday. “You can’t blame that on APD (Atlanta Police Department).”

After the death of George Floyd in late May there were protests in downtown Atlanta, several of which were followed by looting and vandalism.

“Peaceful protests were hijacked by criminals with a dangerous, destructive agenda. Now, innocent Georgians are being targeted, shot, and left for dead,” Kemp said in a statement. “This lawlessness must be stopped and order restored in our capital city.”

The governor’s statement says the National Guard will “provide support” at state buildings like the Capitol and the Governor’s Mansion so state police can increase patrols.

Georgia Name Change FAQ. G eneral Summary of Name Change Laws
G eneral Overview of Name Change Laws
The Courts tend to be prepared to accept title modifications for every genuine explanation. Nonetheless, the granting of a Petition for modification of title is discretionary using the court, while the court may deny a Petition on grounds, which will perhaps maybe not represent objection that is lawful. For the purchase of title modification become provided, the court must find conformity because of the demands of notice therefore the needs when it comes to allegations within the Petition. The court must find additionally find good and enough good reasons for the alteration as well as believe it is in keeping with the general public interest. Finally, if the modification of title is actually for a minor, the Court must discover that the alteration is within the needs associated with the small youngster.
One cannot change his/her/the minor’s name for the reason that is fraudulent modification to a title that may impact the legal rights of some other individual (such as for instance a high profile) nor switch to a title involving vulgarity.
O verview of Process in Georgia for a grownup

Sheriff Alfonzo Williams of Burke County, GA

6.16.20 – Fox News

“Black Georgia sheriff says shooting of Rayshard Brooks by Atlanta police was ‘completely justified’”

By Sam Dorman

https://www.foxnews.com/media/sheriff-alfonzo-williams-rayshard-brooks-s...

Excerpts from this article:

Burke County, Ga. Sheriff Alfonzo Williams argued Tuesday that Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe was “completely justified” in using lethal force against 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks..

Brooks was shot as he attempted to flee Rolfe and another officer, Devin Brosnan, who had attempted to arrest Brooks after he failed a sobriety test. Brooks had stolen one of the officers’ Taser and attempted to fire it in Rolfe’s direction as he ran.

…”Five seconds; 1,001, 1,002, 1,003, 1,004, 1,005. That’s five whole seconds [when] if an officer is hit with that Taser that he, all of his muscles will be locked up and he’ll have the inability to move and to respond. And yet he is still responsible for every weapon on his belt.

Faulty software or poorly calibrated vote-tabulation scanners used to count mailed-in ballots in this week’s chaotic Georgia primary may have prevented thousands of votes from being counted, election officials and voting integrity activists said.

The issue was identified in at least four counties, DeKalb, Morgan, Clarke and Cherokee, according to officials who discovered them, including activists who have sued the state for alleged election mismanagement.

“The fact that it is in multiple counties tells me that it’s probably systemic,” said Richard DeMillo, a Georgia Tech computer scientist who has testified for the plaintiffs, because identical scanners and software were used to count all absentee ballots across the state. DeMillo said the only way to know for sure is through audits.

A top Georgia voting official, voting implementation manager Gabriel Sterling, said Friday that he had seen no evidence yet of the issue and found it difficult to believe the reports were “an active description of what is happening on the ground.”

“These are activists who have an ax to grind,” he said.

Nearly 1.1 million Georgians voted by mail for Tuesday’s primary, which had been delayed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In-person voting Tuesday was beset by cascading failures. Voters waited up to five hours to cast ballots at some polling places due to equipment problems, poll worker unfamiliarity with a new voting system and social distancing measures taken because of the virus. Many voters also showed up to vote in person because absentee ballots they requested never arrived by mail.

People vote at voting booths in the Georgia’s primary electin at Park Tavern on June 9, 2020, in Atlanta.

Reading Time: 3 minutesWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Voters encountered long lines and problems with voting machines on Tuesday during a chaotic day of in-person balloting in Georgia, the latest state to struggle to conduct elections amid the health worries of the coronavirus pandemic.
State Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for the difficulties, and Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said his office would investigate problems in two counties that are Democratic strongholds in an effort to resolve the issues before the November general election.
The missteps in Georgia, which had delayed its primary from March, are likely to raise alarms about how well states will handle voting if the coronavirus is still raging when Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden meet in the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Many voters complained of hours-long waits and voting machines that were not operating. Raffensperger said the problems were most acute in metropolitan Atlanta’s Fulton and DeKalb counties, although the Georgia Democratic Party said it received reports of problems “in every corner of the state.”
The primary was the first use of Georgia’s new voting equipment, which added a paper ballot backup, and officials said there were reports some locations struggled to start the machines, did not receive the equipment necessary to start on time or did not train poll workers properly on handling them.
“I waited for three hours,” said Callie Orsini, 26, who stood in line with hundreds of people in Atlanta’s Midtown neighborhood on Tuesday. She said some people in line had requested absentee ballots but had not received them, and it took longer for poll workers to process them.

Georgia which pursues integration into Western political, economic and military unions has an interesting historical background of encouraging peaceful co-existence among its Christian and non-Christian subjects during the Middle Ages.

Facebook deleted a campaign ad from a GOP candidate in Georgia because she was brandishing a gun in the political commercial.
Marjorie Greene is running in Georgia’s 14th District, and she already grabbed attention with a campaign ad where she warns Antifa to stay out of Georgia. In the ad, Greene is standing on the porch of a local business, and she is armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
“I have a message for Antifa terrorists,” Greene says. “Stay the hell out of Northwest Georgia.”
“You won’t burn our churches, loot our businesses or destroy our homes,” Greene tells Antifa.
Greene posted the campaign ad on Tuesday, but it was deleted by Facebook on Thursday. Facebook told Greene’s campaign that the ad was pulled because it violated the company’s policies against promoting the use of firearms.
Facebook sent an email to Greene’s campaign that said ads “must not promote the sale or use of weapons, ammunition, or explosives.” Ads are also prohibited from “promoting the brandishing of firearms.”
“Facebook lets Antifa organize terrorist attacks on America and allows videos of innocent Americans being brutally attacked, but pulls my post down,” she told Fox News. “America is a country of law and order — not anarchy. Telling Antifa thugs to stay out of northwest Georgia is not a violation of Facebook.”
“Big Tech censorship of conservatives must end,” Greene said.
“We removed this ad, which advocates the use of deadly weapons against a clearly defined group of people, for violating our policies against inciting violence,” Facebook said in a statement to Fox News.