Like Breonna Taylor, Johnny Lorenzo Bolton, a beloved worker at a Georgia carwash, had his eyes closed when a SWAT team armed with firearms and a no-knock warrant raided an apartment he shared with two women, attorneys representing Bolton’s family told The Associated Press. Like Taylor, Bolton was lying down, only he laid on the couch of an unofficial Georgia boarding house instead of in a bedroom. And unfortunately like Taylor, he was shot and killed just after opening his eyes, attorneys said. They have had to rely on an autopsy of Bolton, warrant affidavits, and limited information provided by Cobb County officials to piece together what happened the day Bolton, 49, was killed on Dec. 17, 2020 in Smyrna, which is about 15 miles northwest of downtown Atlanta. Witnesses said he was sleeping when SWAT team members knocked down the door. No sooner than Bolton stood up, responding to the loud noise, than did an officer fire, hitting him in the chest multiple times, Zack Greenamyre, one of his family’s attorneys, told Daily Kos in a phone interview on Wednesday. “He didn’t move toward officers or anything like that,” Greenamyre said.

Even though attorneys sent a letter threatening litigation and a drafted lawsuit to Cobb County officials in mid-April, their efforts have yielded few details about Bolton’s death, only a county attorney’s explanation that officials reviewing the case “believe there are several material inaccuracies” in the draft lawsuit and letter. “For almost six months, we gave them quiet,” Bolton’s sister Daphne Bolton told AP. “That lets me know that’s not what gets a response.”

Daphne Bolton said she wants her brother’s name “to ring beside Breonna Taylor’s ..  When they say Breonna Taylor, I want them to say Breonna Taylor and Johnny Lorenzo Bolton,” Daphne Bolton said. “I want them to be simultaneous.”

Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was sleeping when officers executing a no-knock drug warrant smashed in her door after midnight and shot her at least eight times in her Louisville, Kentucky, home on March 13, 2020. Even though the person cops were allegedly searching for was already in police custody, they have maintained that they opened fire in Taylor’s home because her boyfriend Kenneth Walker fired first and hit Sgt. Jon Mattingly with a single shot. None of the officers will be charged in Taylor’s death, and one was even able to hold on to his job.

As for Johnny Bolton’s death, this is the initial news release and subsequent update released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the agency tasked with investigating officer-involved shootings upon local agencies’ requests:

ORIGINAL RELEASE

Smyrna, GA (December 17, 2020) – On Thursday, December 17, 2020, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was requested by the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office to investigate an officer involved shooting.

Preliminary information indicates that on Thursday, December 17, 2020, at approximately 4:41 a.m., Marietta Cobb Smyrna (MCS) Organized Crime Task Force agents and Cobb County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team deputies, executed a narcotics search warrant at 505 Springbrook Trail SE, Smyrna, GA. During entry into the residence, a SWAT team member discharged his firearm and an occupant of the apartment was struck. The subject was transported to Wellstar Cobb Hospital where he was pronounced dead. The identification of the subject is pending next of kin notification.

No officers were injured during the incident.

An autopsy will be performed by the Cobb County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The GBI will continue its independent investigation of the officer involved shooting. Upon completion, it will be submitted to the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office for review.

That happened on March 16, and the district attorney’s office told AP it is investigating the incident and plans to present its findings to a grand jury, which is the case in all officer-involved shootings. It’s not exactly a faith-restoring stance given that Georgia prosecutors have repeatedly dropped the ball when justice for Black families was at stake. Two different Georgia district attorney offices are being investigated for “possible prosecutorial misconduct” in the handling of the investigation into Ahmaud Arbery’s death. He was jogging on Feb. 23, 2020 near a home under construction in a coastal Georgia neighborhood lived in by a former cop and investigator with the Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office. The ex-investigator, Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and area resident William “Roddie” Bryan cornered Arbery, according to his family’s attorneys. They accused him of trespassing onto the property, and Travis McMichael shot and killed Arbery while Bryan filmed parts of the encounter.

The video was supplied to authorities the same day as the shooting, but it still took them 74 days to arrest the men accused of murdering Arbery. It’s the 181st day since Johnny Bolton was shot in what a Cobb County medical examiner concluded was a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.

Greenamyre said police served warrants at both the apartment Bolton lived in with a woman and her teenage daughter in one bedroom and another woman in another bedroom, and the townhouse where a suspected drug dealer resided. Police alleged the accused drug dealer paid for Bolton’s apartment and that warrant applications were based on surveillance and statements from a confidential informant claiming to have bought cocaine at Bolton’s apartment.

The alleged drug dealer was arrested in the raid of his home, and police obtained additional warrants for him after his brother told authorities they could access a locked closet housing drugs inside of a backpack, AP reported. Authorities also secured arrest warrants for a man and two women in Bolton’s apartment when the SWAT team raided it. The teen girl was also present during the raid, Greenamyre said.

“The limited information available to the family now does not make this look like a justified shooting,” attorneys said in the letter accompanying their drafted lawsuit. Although they have been able to access warrant affidavits, Greenamyre said there might not be body camera footage in the incident due to a loophole in county policy that permits SWAT teams not to wear the devices. “What the family is looking for is accountability for what happens,” the attorney said.

Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens, who took office this January, ran on a platform of reform and promised to be significantly more progressive than his predecessor. But when it comes to Bolton’s case, Owens has been uncooperative, Greenamyre said. He claimed that the sheriff first refused to talk to the family. Then, after reversing courses when the story gained media attention, Owens told the family he was “almost entirely unfamiliar” with the facts of the case even though his office has access to the case information, Greenamyre said. Bolton’s family is pushing for accountability, reform, and a statewide ban on no-knock warrants. “They want answers and transparency from law enforcement about what happened, and they will do whatever they can to get that,” Greenamyre said.

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