GBI: Passenger in pastor's car was target of drug probe

TOCCOA - A northeast Georgia pastor who died after being shot by agents from a multi-county drug task force was not a target of a drug investigation but the GBI says a passenger in his car was.

The shooting occurred after, according to GBI spokesman John Bankhead, Jonathan Ayers dropped the woman off at a store in downtown Toccoa Tuesday afternoon.

Bankhead said agents approached Ayers for questioning but the pastor tried to avoid them, putting his car in reverse before he struck one of the agents.

Bankhead said an agent shot at the car and Ayers suffered a gunshot wound to the torso. Stephens County Sheriff Randy Shirley says the plainclothes officers identified themselves as police and that witnesses have verified that.

The woman was charged with cocaine possession and distribution.

FAMILY REACTS

Ayers family said earlier in the day Wednesday that he he was being wrongly portrayed as a drug dealer.

"He is one of the Godliest men I've ever known," said his brother-in law Matt Carpenter of Gainesville, one of several relatives Ayers has in Gainesville. "We're all [family members] shocked and absolutely do not believe he was involved in anything illicit or illegal there."

Ayers, 28, was the pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia and had entered the Shell convenience store on Currahee Street in Toccoa, apparently to make a withdrawal from an ATM.

A surveillance tape, published by WNEG-TV, shows officers firing on Ayers' vehicle as he backed out of the convenience store parking lot.

Carpenter said the family received conflicting reports when they were contacted by authorities, first being told Ayers was in a traffic accident. And then, authorities told the family, Ayers had been shot.

"We tried to get details, and there wasn't much," said Carpenter. "They weren't letting Abby [Ayers' wife] back to see him yet. All we knew was that it was a random shooting. Once we were out at the hospital, we were told he had been shot by a drug dealer."

It was later in the evening, according to Carpenter, that agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation revealed that Ayers was involved in an officer-related shooting.

Carpenter said he believes the surveillance tape clearly shows that undercover officers opened fire on his brother-in-law without cause.

"They were in plain clothes," noted Carpenter, "The only thing they had to identify themselves was a badge, and we're not even sure if they flashed it or not."

Carpenter said that Ayers and his wife Abby were expecting their first child; she is 16-weeks pregnant.

(AccessNorthGa.com's B.J. Williams contributed to this story.)