After a  Screven County grand jury on Monday declined to indict former Georgia State Patrol Trooper First Class Jacob Gordon “Jake” Thompson  for shooting Julian Lewis to death last Aug. 7, Lewis’ family is demanding that the district attorney present the proposed charges, including murder, again to a new grand jury.

Ogeechee Circuit District Attorney Daphne Totten, in a statement issued Monday night, did not rule that out, but said that whether it occurs “will be considered and announced at a later date.” Totten’s entire statement can be found at statesboroherald.com, posted at the end of the previous story, “Screven grand jury recommends no charge against ex-trooper ….” A separate statement issued by Thompson’s defense attorney, Keith Barber, thanking the grand jury and asserting that Thompson “has clearly shown he only acted in self-defense” appears below the current story.

But in a media conference Tuesday morning, attorneys Francys Johnson and Mawuli Davis, surrounded by members of Lewis’ family, said they also want a federal investigation into the case and the release of the dash camera video from Thompson’s patrol car, in addition to a new presentation to a different Ogeechee Judicial Circuit grand jury.

“Make no mistake about it, we believe that this was a very strong case – the evidence was there;  it still is – and that this would  be one of the first times this state would hold a law enforcement  officer accountable  for  killing a black person,” Johnson said.

Julian Lewis’ mother, Lindsay Milton, spoke during the press conference, which the Statesboro Herald participated in remotely.

“Yes, I did have  a very, very rough night last night because that was a hard pill for me to swallow to see that this young man is going to get off free for taking my son away from me,” Milton said. “In ideal life if he took my son away from me, we need some justice did on this. He needs to do some time or something for taking my child’s life. … We’re going to push it and push it until we can’t push no more until something (is done) about this. We’re going to push if we have to push all the way out of the state of Georgia.”

If her son had killed someone this way “he’d have never got out of jail,” either before or after trial, she said.

Happened Aug. 7, 2020

Thompson, who is white and in his late 20s, was on patrol as a GSP trooper when he attempted a traffic stop of Lewis, 60, who was black, for a nonworking taillight, according to initial reports and statements in court last year. Lewis did not stop, and after a brief pursuit, Thompson used his patrol car in a PIT maneuver, or “precision immobilization technique” to force Lewis’ car off the road.

The car ended up in the ditch along a remote stretch of unpaved Stoney Pond Road in Screven County. In an incident report filed three days after the crash, Thompson stated that he drew his gun as he got out of his patrol car and heard the engine of Lewis’ car “revving at a high rate of speed” and, by a light on his weapon, saw both of Lewis’ hands still on the steering wheel, “wrenching the steering wheel in an aggressive back and forth manner towards me and my patrol vehicle.”

“It appeared to me that the violator was trying to use his vehicle to injure me,” Thompson wrote, as reported in the Statesboro Herald, Aug. 17-18, 2020. “Being in fear for my life and safety, I discharged my weapon once.”

He shot Lewis in the forehead. One week later, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation brought warrants charging Thompson with felony murder and aggravated assault. The State Patrol fired him.

During a bond hearing in August, GBI Agent Dustin Peak testified that dash camera video showed just one second passed  from the  time Thompson got out  of his patrol car until  he fired his gun and that Lewis’ car, its battery knocked loose, had been disabled by the crash.

But Thompson’s attorney, Barber, said,  “I  can state categorically that the vehicle was not disabled during the PIT maneuver and  it was revving  hen  Trooper Thompson had contact with Mr. Lewis and Mr. Lewis tried to kill or injure Trooper Thompson with his vehicle,” when  asked about this on the phone Tuesday.

Also reported last year, a state toxicology report showed that Lewis tested positive for cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as fluoxetine, an antidepressant. But Thompson, despite receiving some past accolades for his work as a trooper, had faced previous citizen complaints that he was “overly aggressive” and displayed a “lack of compassion” in separate incidents.

What happened Monday

When the grand jury met Monday, Thompson was allowed to make a statement to the jurors, with Barber also present. Georgia law allows law enforcement officers charged in cases involving used of force to make such a statement, but ordinary citizens facing the same potential charges are not allowed to speak to grand juries, whose proceedings are closed to the news media and public. Members of the grand jury then asked Thompson questions, as did the district attorney, but Thompson and his attorney were not allowed to sit in on the district attorney’s presentation to the grand jury, Barber said.

As Johnson explained in Tuesday’s press conference and Totten had also noted, a grand jury’s decision on an indictment requires agreement only of a majority of jurors, not unanimity. A Georgia grand jury consists of from 16 to 23 citizens, and Johnson said he had been told this one was made up of 22 people, six of whom identified as African American.

The newspaper has not confirmed the jury makeup with any official source. Johnson said he did not know what the vote count was on the “no bill” vote, only that it required at least 12 of the jurors. The jurors were asked to decide on the relatively low standard of “probable cause” whether there was enough evidence to bring the charges to trial.

Saying that the GBI had seen probable cause for the charges, that Superior Court Chief Judge F. Gates Peed had found probable cause to send the case forward and that Totten had reviewed the case and determined there was evidence that crimes had been committed, Davis and Johnson referred to Monday’s outcome as the result of a “runaway grand jury” or “grand jury nullification.”

Family’s demands

“We are resolved that we are not moved by what the grand jury said yesterday,” Johnson said.  “We are committed to demanding three things at this moment. First, we want to see the video. The public deserves it, they’re paying for it, and it’s been shown now to 22 citizens of Screven County but it’s not been shown to Julian’s mother or his wife or attorneys.”

He noted that Thompson’s lawyers, but not Lewis’ family, had seen the video.

“How is that right? Give us the evidence,” Johnson said.

Secondly, he called on Totten to be as “zealous in her efforts” as she and her staff are on other cases and for the elected district attorney to meet with Lewis’ family, which he said has not occurred.

”Thirdly, impanel another grand jury, and as you promised this family and you took an oath to do, prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law,” Johnson said.

Call for federal intervention

Davis voiced the call for a federal investigation.

“What happened is inexplicable, and it’s unjust, and so we’re clear about that, and it’s our position that in addition to what this elected district attorney should do, must do, is required to do under the law, that there is a moment such as this … that we need in south Georgia, in Screven County, federal intervention,” he said.

Now is the time for “the U.S. attorney step forward and review this and prosecute this crime” as a violation of Lewis’ constitutional rights, Davis said.

On the phone later, Barber said any decision to present charges against his client to a new grand jury would be up to the district attorney and he doesn’t know anything they could do to prevent it.

“We would, of course, not want to go through it again, but the evidence would be the same,  and it would be the same conclusion,” Barber said.

Any decision to release the dash camera video would also be Totten’s to make, and Barber would neither support it nor not support it, he said.

“We feel that the video is not an accurate portrayal of what happened that night in regards to Trooper Thompson and Mr. Lewis,” Barber said.

The complete statement from Barber is below: