In this undated photo released by the Georgia Department of Public Safety, State trooper Jacob Gordon Thompson is seen in an official portrait. (Georgia Department of Public Safety via AP)
A state trooper in Georgia is accused of murdering in the fatal shooting of a 60-year-old man who tried to escape a traffic stop.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Trooper Jacob Gordon Thompson shot and killed Julian Edward Roosevelt Lewis after an Aug. 7 night stop in rural Screven County. Lewis was shot once, the bureau said.
Thompson, 27, was charged with false murder and aggravated assault, the agency said Friday.
The arrest came two days after Georgia NAACP President James “Major” Woodall and others demanded a federal probe into the shooting of Lewis, who is Black.
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“This is not a black and white problem. It’s a matter of humanity, “Woodall told the Statesboro Herald on Thursday.
The Associated Press mentioned Woodall in an article that Wood’s death cited another chilling example of a Black man being irregularly murdered by a white law enforcement officer.
Thompson, who became a trooper seven years ago, was released after his arrest.
The Georgia Department of Public Safety said in a statement that Thompson was fired because of his’ negligence or inefficiency in performing assigned tasks; as a commission of a crime. ”
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A day after the shooting, the agency issued a short news release saying a trooper was trying to stop a Nissan Sentra for a traffic offensive and that the car refused to stop. After a brief pursuit among several counties, the trooper carried out a maneuver which forced the Nissan to stop in a ditch.
Francys Johnson, a Statesboro attorney representing the Lewis family, told the Herald that the traffic stop involved an unintentional tail light and that Lewis was unarmed and in the car when he was shot in the face.
“Mr. “Lewis never got out of the car, and the investigation will show that, but seconds after the accident, he was shot dead – shot in the face and killed,” Johnson said, according to the paper.
Thompson’s lawyer, Keith Barber, declined to comment on the case’s specifications, but said he believed his client was “of excellent character”, the AP reported.
“I think he’s a nice trooper,” Barber said. “I think at the end of the day he will be released in this case.”
The trooper was charged amid a nationwide scare over racial injustice following the death of George Floyd while waiting for Minneapolis police on May 25.
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In Georgia, authorities also recently charged three white men in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery as he walked through her neighborhood, as well as two white police officers in the shooting of Rayshard Brooks after he tried to escape a DUI arrest. Both victims were Black.
