GAINESVILLE, Ga. (ABP) — A civil trial involving a Baptist pastor killed in 2009 by police who mistook him for a suspected drug dealer is in the hands of a jury. After closing arguments Feb. 19, jurors in U.S. District Court in Gainesville, Ga., were ordered to reappear for deliberations at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 20 in the case involving Jonathan Ayers, pastor of Shoals Creek Baptist Church, in Lavonia, Ga., fatally shot by police Sept. 1, 2009, outside a convenience store in Toccoa, Ga. His widow, Abigail Ayers, claims the officer who fired the fatal shot, Mountain Judicial Circuit N.C.I.S. Drug Team Agent Billy Shane Harrison, was an overzealous cop who deprived her husband of his civil rights.
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