Julian Lewis didn’t pull over for the Georgia State Patrol cruiser flashing its blue lights behind him on a rural highway. He still didn’t stop after pointing a hand out the window and turning onto a darkened dirt road as the trooper sounded his siren.
Five minutes into a pursuit that began over a broken taillight, the 60-year-old Black man was dead — shot in the forehead by the white trooper who fired a single bullet mere seconds after forcing Lewis to crash into a ditch. Trooper Jake Thompson insisted he pulled the trigger as Lewis revved the engine of his Nissan Sentra and jerked his steering wheel as if trying to mow him down.
“I had to shoot this man,” Thompson can be heard telling a supervisor on video recorded by his dash-mounted camera at the shooting scene in rural Screven County, midway between Savannah and Augusta. “And I’m just scared.”
But new investigative details obtained by The Associated Press and the never-before-released dashcam video of the August 2020 shooting have raised fresh questions about how the trooper avoided prosecution with nothing more than a signed promise never to work in law enforcement again. Use-of-force experts who reviewed the footage for AP said the shooting appeared to be unjustified.
Then they’d have to pay them more.
There’s still tons of places that police, firefighters, and EMT’s, like $35k a year starting. Everyone always talks about teachers not making enough, but forgets about the people who show up in 5 minutes in the middle of the night because you called 911 and have no idea what to do and need to get help fast. Firefighters and emts are exploited because of a love of the job and what it means to them. Police are often not of that same track. If you don’t want to just attract the guy who wants to walk around looking for trouble and have a gun, you’ll have to make it worth the money.
Oh trust me, I’m well aware how shit most (non cop) first responders have it. Round my neck of the woods, cops start at around 60k will full benefits. That’s still damn good money here, and they go up quickly.
Our firefighters don’t even make minimum wage. They finally just got a pension. Our EMS hardly makes more than minimum wage.