Georgia revokes police certification from officer who killed unarmed teen

ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has learned a former Union City police officer who shot an unarmed teen in the back, and later lied about the incident to another agency, has had his police certification revoked by the state.

Georgia's Peace Officer Standards and Training Council took the action against Luther Lewis on Wednesday.

Last year,

into the 2011 shooting of Ariston Waiters uncovered new witnesses and raised questions about Lewis' actions, including two prior incidents in which fellow officers said he lied. %

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"If you can't tell the truth with a badge on your chest, why should you need to be a law enforcement officer?" said POST Council director Ken Vance in an interview last August.

Vance said POST considers lying one of the most serious offenses an officer can commit, because it destroys his credibility in building future cases.

Vance cannot speak publicly about Lewis' revocation until the action officially becomes public in 10 days.

But Channel 2 was able to confirm the council's action by using the case number assigned early in the investigation.

Ariston's mother, Freda Waiters, attended the POST meeting but did not learn of the official action taken until Channel 2 and the AJC confirmed it.

"It's a small step toward justice for my son," she said, "I'm glad they got [Lewis] off the street. The streets will be safer without him being an officer."

THE SHOOTING

Ariston Waiters had committed no crime in December 2011 when he encountered then-Union City officer Luther Lewis.

Waiters had been watching a fight in his neighborhood and took off running when police arrived to break it up.

Lewis eventually caught up to Waiters in a wooded area, got him facedown on the ground with one arm in handcuffs, and then shot him twice in the back.

The first responding supervisor from Lewis' department broke his silence last year, telling Channel 2 and the AJC that the shooting troubled him from day one.

The investigation also revealed at least two prior instances in which Lewis' fellow officers reported him for lying, but that documentation was missing from the department's official files.

In one instance, internal affairs determined Lewis had lied when he said he fired shots in a wooded area because someone had shot at him first, and in another incident he told supervisors he saw the suspect they were seeking inside a house in order gain entry; the house turned out to be empty.

"Are you asking me if I would hire this person if I was a law enforcement chief? Hell no. Pure and simple. If you'll lie to me once, you'll lie to me again," said Vance in an earlier interview about Lewis.

THE LYING

POST opened the case against Lewis last summer after Channel 2 and the AJC uncovered documents showing Lewis had been fired from a new job patrolling the Savannah-Hilton Head Airport for "deception during the interview process."

Lewis failed to disclose that the Waiters case was about to go back to a second grand jury the following week.

The district attorney said Lewis also failed to tell the grand jury he'd just been fired for lying.

That 2015 grand jury, and an earlier one in 2012, each opted not to indict Lewis for the Waiters shooting.

Sources told Channel 2 Lewis made a tearful closing statement to each grand jury explaining that he had been in fear for his life, and claiming Waiters had tried to grab his gun.

At the time, those statements could not be cross-examined by prosecutors or questioned by grand jurors. Georgia legislators have since amended that law to level the playing field for victims in which an officer is accused.

In December, Vance told Channel 2 an action would likely be coming against Lewis, though not for the shooting itself.

"I think that in the end there will be a certain amount of small justice in this case," he said.

When asked about the fact that Lewis lost his certification for lying instead of for the shooting itself, Freda Waiters replied, "He lied to the grand jury. He's been lying all along. So it fits that he got revoked for lying."

Lewis has 30 days to appeal the POST Council's decision to revoke his certification.

Cox Media Group