GUILTY GA - Four dead in Atlanta courthouse shooting, Brian Nichols on trial

[concernedperson]

I think the Atlanta LE should hire her as a consultant. They could use the help!

:slap:

Remember it is Fulton county sheriff's department that is the culprit. FBI,GBI, Atlanta PD were only reacting to their info. There have been many incidences where all of above LE and the US Marshalls service have made huge differences. Not only to Atlanta crimes but nationwide. So, my finger is where the blame is really at, Fulton County Sheriff's Department.

 

[1986]

Remember it is Fulton county sheriff's department that is the culprit. FBI,GBI, Atlanta PD were only reacting to their info. There have been many incidences where all of above LE and the US Marshalls service have made huge differences. Not only to Atlanta crimes but nationwide. So, my finger is where the blame is really at, Fulton County Sheriff's Department.

This is true. Atlanta LE was too broad a term. Sorry for that. Exactly who was in charge of the hunt for this guy? the Sheriff's Dept. or the FBI?

 

[Cypros]

Just heard on the news from his (now former) attorney on the rape case that anti-death-penalty lawyers are lining up and pounding on the door wanting to represent Nichols.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. There will always be another Geragos waiting in the wings for a chance at the limelight.

 

[concernedperson]

Just heard on the news from his (now former) attorney on the rape case that anti-death-penalty lawyers are lining up and pounding on the door wanting to represent Nichols.

Now that is just getting your name in the news. Who in the hell thinks he has a defense? Courtroom with many witnesses and totally bloody walls. Victims lying all over for the world to see. Pain screaming out from every vestibule and what, now he is insane? Criminal defense attornies with these type of cases should really think about it. I am pissed, can you tell? I am sorry, too tired and need sleep. Will revisit when I am normal just lived through hell last night. And was worried about too many people.

 

[1986]

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/0305/13courtsearch.html

Interesting article from Atlanta paper about problems with the search.

 

[1986]

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/0305/13courtjail.html

Other counties have different policies dealing with prisoner security. In Cobb County, for instance, two unarmed sheriff's deputies escort defendants into court and sit nearby, while an armed deputy watches from across the room.

Some sheriff's departments put a belt under a defendant's civilian clothes that can deliver an electric charge by remote control, said Dale Mann, director of the Georgia Public Safety Training Center.

Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill said his office uses the belts and leg irons to control potentially violent prisoners.

"Any time we've got an inmate we think is a problem, all a deputy has to do is push a button and the electronic shock disables the inmate immediately," Hill said.

Another interesting article in AJC.

 

[concernedperson]

This has been my complaint....that Fulton County Sheriff's office is lax. I totally believe most of the 10 surrounding metro counties that comprise Atlanta are not like that. The US Marshalls service, for instance, is extraordinary. Cobb County too. Lots of crimes are solved in Georgia with good police work.

To allow a 5'2" grandmother to accompany a violent accused felon is so idiotic it defies everything. Also, I think it was Jeana that posted this, but a lot of the deputies are way too old to be handling emotionally charged accused people. This ain't desk duty....it is critical.

 

[1986]

http://www.co.fulton.ga.us/employment/employment_category_detail2_T587_R346.html

This is the job description for Fulton County Sheriff Deputy.

MUST BE AT LEAST TWENTY (20) YEARS OF AGE. IF REQUESTED MUST SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE A PHYSICAL AGILITY TEST AS PRESCRIBED BY THE GEORGIA PEACE OFFICER STANDARDS AND TRAINING ACT;

AFTER EXAMINATION BY A LICENSED PHYSICIAN OF THE FULTON COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT, TO BE FREE FROM ANY PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL OR MENTAL CONDITIONS WHICH MIGHT ADVERSELY AFFECT HIS/HER EXERCISING THE POWERS OR DUTIES OF A PEACE OFFICER.

GEORGIA PEACE OFFICER STANDARDS AND TRAINING CERTIFICATION; WITHIN THE FIRST YEAR OF EMPLOYMENT; JAILER CERTIFICATION COURSE;

If I'm reading correctly, the main info on this page deals with office duties and management duties. Nothing really says that the person should have self-defense skills. Unless these are part of the training that can be obtained during the first year of employment. Interesting.

 

[concernedperson]

No one has posted this info about Ashley Smith. So, I will. She is a remarkable young woman and a hero in my eyes.She stopped him from going forward with more ill abuse and let the whole scenario happen without any more bloodshed. Her credit is her calm and spiritual belief and she was lucky. Her daughter is lucky to have her as a mom. Blessings to Ashley as heros are not recognized when they are ordinary human beings but Ashley is an extraodinary person with the hero attached to her name. May she go forward with all the grace of God and make other differences. I ask other WS's to acknowledge someone who goes forward and try to make a difference themselves.The interview with Nancy last night was so powerful and heartfelt and Ashley is so importent. Thank you.

 

[bulletgirl2002]

No one has posted this info about Ashley Smith. So, I will. She is a remarkable young woman and a hero in my eyes.She stopped him from going forward with more ill abuse and let the whole scenario happen without any more bloodshed. Her credit is her calm and spiritual belief and she was lucky. Her daughter is lucky to have her as a mom. Blessings to Ashley as heros are not recognized when they are ordinary human beings but Ashley is an extraodinary person with the hero attached to her name. May she go forward with all the grace of God and make other differences. I ask other WS's to acknowledge someone who goes forward and try to make a difference themselves.The interview with Nancy last night was so powerful and heartfelt and Ashley is so importent. Thank you.

Ashley is from Augusta, GA. She comes from a pretty colorful past. Her husband was killed in a gang related incident and died in her arms. No one was every aprehended for this shooting. She herself has been arrested several times in the last few years on drug related charges, traffic violations and assaulting her landlord. According to her family, she has undergone a spritiual transformation in the past few years. I am not being disparaging of her, just telling you what I know of her background. Many of us would not pass the scruitny I know she will be under. For all of you that are spiritual, perhaps this was God's plan for her....to be able to talk to this troubled man and keep more people from being killed and hurt.

 

[concernedperson]

Ashley is from Augusta, GA. She comes from a pretty colorful past. Her husband was killed in a gang related incident and died in her arms. No one was every aprehended for this shooting. She herself has been arrested several times in the last few years on drug related charges, traffic violations and assaulting her landlord. According to her family, she has undergone a spritiual transformation in the past few years. I am not being disparaging of her, just telling you what I know of her background. Many of us would not pass the scruitny I know she will be under. For all of you that are spiritual, perhaps this was God's plan for her....to be able to talk to this troubled man and keep more people from being killed and hurt.

Amen, bulletgirl.Sometimes we don't know where we tread. If anyone of us can make a small difference then there we go with all the warts for the world to see. But no one else was killed after that point and he was a spree killer. Ashley is/has been paying her dues.She seems sincere but the bottom line is he didn't kill anyone else after he met her. So, give her her due, something was right.

 

[mysteriew]

Senior Judge Hilton Fuller today told the Fulton County Sheriff's Office it could release portions of its report on the investigation into what happened at the Fulton courthouse on March 11 when a judge, a court reporter and a deputy were killed, allegedly by Brian Nichols.

Fuller, who was assigned the case after all Fulton judges recused themselves, said he found no threat to a fair trial for Nichols in the executive summary, timeline and policies and procedures of the sheriff's department, which were included in the report. Consequently, those portions of the voluminous report can be released to the media today.



SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/atlanta/0405/07courtsheriff.html

 

[mysteriew]

Brian Nichols faced a prosecution that was better prepared for his second rape trial, and he knew it.

The transcript from that trial, which abruptly ended after Nichols allegedly gunned down the judge in a March 11 shooting rampage, reveals the Fulton County district attorney's office was presenting a more detailed case.

Brian Nichols (left), with his attorneys, knew the prosecution was building a better case in his second rape trial.

There were more witnesses who could fill gaps that might have kept an earlier jury from convicting Nichols of raping a former girlfriend. More analysis of evidence also was presented.

Nichols recognized prosecutors were building a stronger case. At one point he told one, "You're doing a much better job."

After his first trial on the rape charges ended with a hung jury in late February, Nichols went back to court in early March. That second jury never got a chance to consider his fate.


http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/0505/15courttrans.html

 

[mysteriew]

She awoke at dawn that Saturday in a small guarded room at the Colony Square Sheraton, only three miles from the courthouse in downtown Atlanta. Her boyfriend had wanted her to flee to the countryside, but authorities felt she'd be safe here.

The first thing she did was click on TV news.

Brian Nichols was still at large.

Prosecutor Gayle Abramson had hoped to be celebrating his conviction for rape by now — a victory that had already eluded her once.

Instead, he was on the loose and she was in protective custody, prisoner to the realization that the case against Nichols had led to the deaths of three of her friends.

She wondered: Would she ever shake this feeling of guilt?

At most, she'd slept a fitful four hours, interrupted by the knowledge that the nightmare of the day before was real.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/0505/22impact.html?UrAuth=`N\NUOaNVUbTTUWUXUTUZTZUaUWUbUVUZUbU`UcTYWYWZV

 

[mysteriew]

The man accused of killing a judge and three others during and after an escape from a downtown courthouse did not attend a brief hearing Tuesday because of a spider bite, one of
his lawyers said.

Brian Nichols waived his right to appear at the status conference because of a "medical problem," lawyer Gary Parker told Judge Hilton Fuller. After the hearing, Parker said Nichols was bitten on the head by a spider and suffered some swelling. He said the incident happened in Nichols' jail cell, though he did not say when.

The judge and prosecutors previously asked that Nichols be present at all pre-trial hearings unless there was an overriding reason for him not to be there.

A spokeswoman for the sheriff's department, which is in charge of the county jail, said she was unaware of the bite.

"We don't have any problems with spiders in the jail," said the spokeswoman, Sgt. Nikita Hightower.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/strange/news-article.aspx?storyid=40375

 

[mysteriew]

The e-mails speak volumes about the anguish and anger of a mother told that her son had just murdered a judge, a court reporter and a sheriff's deputy at the courthouse.

A day after the March 11 rampage and thousands of miles away in Africa, Claritha Nichols messaged a Fulton County sheriff's deputy who is also a deacon at her church in metro Atlanta.

"Me and Gene are grieving and angry Brian is still alive," she wrote to Sgt. Jerome Dowdell. "If he would've killed himself there would be finality. We now have to wait years for [the] judicial system to execute him."

In another e-mail, Claritha Nichols, who was in Tanzania with her husband, Gene, expressed frustration that the Sheriff's Department seemed not to take seriously her warning more than two weeks earlier that her son, who was on trial for rape, could turn violent if convicted.

"I am angry with Brian. I do intended [sic] to make it known Fulton Co [sic] was forewarned," the mother wrote to Dowdell on March 14. The deputy was fired after an investigation found he broke department rules.

The e-mails were obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution under Georgia's Open Records Act.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/0805/19nichols.html

 

[concernedperson]

That is the second time lately we have heard of a relative trying to warn police about a potential dangerous situation and the second time disastrous results occurred because that info was not heeded.

 

[mysteriew]

That is the second time lately we have heard of a relative trying to warn police about a potential dangerous situation and the second time disastrous results occurred because that info was not heeded.

It had to have been hard for those relatives to make that call. It probably took a lot of soul searching, and willpower. Yet they get up the courage to make the call, and no one listened.

 

[mysteriew]

Ashley Smith, the woman held hostage for hours after the March 11 Fulton County Courthouse shootings, reveals in a book released today that she gave alleged gunman Brian Nichols drugs on the night he held her captive.

Smith, 27, was thrust into a national media spotlight after talking her way out of Nichols' captivity and then calling police. In "Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero," Smith shares details of her seven-hour ordeal as a hostage in her Duluth apartment, and for the first time tells of giving Nichols drugs.

Nichols asked her for marijuana, she writes, but she had only a small amount of crystal methamphetamine. She thought offering him the drug might curry favor, but she says she refused to take the drug with him.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/living/0905/27ashley.html

 

[Jules]

ATLANTA — The woman who says she gained the trust of suspected courthouse gunman Brian Nichols (search) by talking about her faith in God discloses in a new book that she gave him methamphetamine during the hostage ordeal.

Ashley Smith (search) did not share that detail with authorities after she talked her way out of captivity.

In her book, "Unlikely Angel," released Tuesday, Smith says Nichols had her bound on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says he asked for marijuana, but she did not have any, and dug into her crystal methamphetamine (search) stash instead.

Smith, who has been in a mental hospital and has flunked out of drug rehabilitation programs, says the seven-hour hostage ordeal led her to stop using drugs. She says she has not touched drugs since the night before she was taken hostage.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170562,00.html