[When Racists Call 911...] Questions Linger After White GA Cops Kill "Suspicious Black Man" Walking Up the Road

From [HERE] It’s been nearly a month since 58-year-old Euree Lee Martin walked from Milledgeville to Deepstep in neighboring Washington County where he later collapsed and died on the side of Deepstep Road after being tased while deputies responded to a report of a "suspicious person" on the road.

Details surrounding what led up to the incident have yet to be made public, as an investigation by a state law enforcement agency continues. 

Deputy Michael Howell, Sargent Lee Copeland and Deputy Rhett Scott were the responding officers who killed Martin according to a press release from the Washington County Sheriff's Office.

The sheriff's office says Martin fought deputies, but a bystander's phone video doesn't show that.

Dotson called the Tasing a "wrongful death," because there's no evidence that Martin did anything wrong.

"The video doesn't show him doing anything but walking, and that's not a crime," said Dotson.

A rep from the NAACP, Quentin T. Howell, no relation to Deputy Howell, said the NAACP was seeking the 911 tape be released to the public by authorities, as well as the dash camera recording from the deputies at the scene, along with the deputies’ body camera recordings of the incident.

Martin, who was known to walk from his home in Milledgeville to Deepstep to visit family members, reportedly did that same thing Friday, July 7.

Shortly before 7:30 p.m., a dispatcher with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a resident identifying himself as Cyrus Harris, who lives in Deepstep, according to a copy of the incident report from the call.

Deputy Michael Howell responded to the area of 11263 Deepstep Road to a complaint from Harris of a suspicious person.

That person turned out to be Martin.

“Before making it to 11263 Deepstep Road, I observed the black male on the right side of the road walking toward traffic that was headed toward Milledgeville near Deepstep Road and Mt. Sinai Road,” Deputy Howell said in the report. “I pulled alongside the black male with my passenger window down and asked the male subject, ‘Are you OK, and what’s your name.’ And he looked at me and asked, ‘Who are you,’ and he walked off walking toward Sandersville.” 

Nothing further was mentioned by the deputy in his incident report concerning what led up to deputies later deploying their department-issued Tasers on Martin.

Quentin T. Howell said Martin was not stopping at anyone’s house.

“All he was doing was walking up the road,” Howell said. “Why do cops have to be called for an American walking down the street and minding his own business? If we called the police every time we didn’t recognized somebody, police officers would hardly be able to do anything else except answer calls like that — day and night.

Howell described it as racial profiling.

“They were called by a white person who thought this black man was up to something no good when all he was doing was walking up the road,” Howell said. “Mr. Martin was merely doing what he did on a regular basis and that was walking from one county to another, checking on his family and checking on his friends.”

As of Thursday, the official cause of Martin’s death still had not been disclosed by the GBI.

Scott Whitley, special agent in-charge of the GBI Region 12 Office in Eastman, told The Union-Recorder that he was still awaiting the cause of death from the medical examiner.

Martin’s death has sparked outcries for justice from officials with the NAACP, as well as many others, including residents in both Washington and Baldwin counties where members of Martin’s family and friends live.

Two large town hall meetings have been held, the latest of which took place at T.J. Elder Community Center in Sandersville just a week ago, have drawn hundreds of people, including the immediate past president of the Georgia Branch of the NAACP, Francys Johnson.

Quentin T. Howell, a Milledgeville resident who serves as communications director for the Washington County NAACP Branch and who also attended the recent town halls, said the civil rights group has requested that Middle Judicial Circuit District Attorney Hayward Altman recuse himself from reviewing the case file once the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has concluded its investigation surrounding Martin’s death.

“One of the first steps that we believe needs to be done, and this is no disrespect to the district attorney of Washington County, but because the district attorney and the sheriff’s office have a cordial working and professional relationship already established, we feel as a Washington County community, we would feel more supportive of this investigation if the district attorney would recuse himself, be replaced by a district attorney with no ties to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office,” Howell said.

The NAACP is asking that a special prosecutor be appointed to review the case once the GBI has finished its investigation.

“What that would do is give credibility to this investigation that’s not there now,” Howell said. “There are a tremendous number of people that feel that this investigation is going to allow these officers — be it they were wrong or right — to go scott-free.”

Howell said incidents like these weren’t just local concerns, but concerning across the nation.

The town hall meetings have been held for one purpose and one purpose only, Howell told The Union-Recorder during a Friday interview.

“We were there to seek justice,” Howell said. “Justice was why hundreds of us were there. Justice — the kind that includes answers and explanations. It includes a big and broad picture of the Washington County community, which doesn’t just affect the Washington County community. This was a Milledgeville resident. It was a person, like myself, who has family in Sandersville and who walked back and forth between these two communities.

“All the answers that we’re seeking fall under the umbrella of justice,” Howell said. “It was unfortunate that we did not have people there to be able to give more direct answers. We understand that there is a GBI investigation underway and that we can’t expect specifics on certain aspects of what happened, but when it comes to training; when it comes to the use of force; when it comes to training specifically regarding an individual with a mental disability; when it comes to how certain calls are handled.”

He also pointed out that the officials, some of whom included political candidates seeking U.S. Congressional office, also attended last week’s town hall meeting and that the crowd should have heard answers.

“Those were questions that could have been answered, but the sheriff wasn’t there himself and neither was a representative from the sheriff’s office there,” Howell said. “I personally told the crowd there that they were [not] going to get all of their questions answered, because the people that needed to provide those answers didn’t come.”

Washington County Sheriff Thomas H. Smith, whom Howell said was invited, opted not to attend.

Following Martin’s death Smith requested that the GBI head-up the investigation. He also immediately placed the three deputies involved in the incident on administrative leave with pay.

The chief of the Sandersville Police Department, along with another ranking member of his department, attended the recent town hall meeting and provided as many answers as they could concerning Taser deployment, etc., Howell said.

“We appreciate them having attended, but still, there were a lot of unanswered questions, there, and there still is,” Howell told the newspaper.

One such question lingering concerns overall training of law enforcement officers when dealing with individuals with mental challenges and the use of force.

“Are they (law enforcement officers) getting enough training,” Howell asked.

He also expressed concern about what constitutes the use of a law enforcement officer deploying a Taser.

Meanwhile, the three deputies involved in the incident, identified as Sgt. Henry L. Copeland, Rhett Scott and Michael Howell, remain on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation by the GBI.