Most Reported Details in the Standard Robbery/Murder FALSE
Decatur Metro | January 10, 2009 | 11:23 amAndisheh forwards this must read from this morning’s AJC.
Apparently, most of the details floating around regarding the murder of Standard employee John Henderson are inaccurate…including the startling detail that he was killed “execution-style”.
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Wow. Hard to understand how that much bad information was released by the APD.
I’m not sure how much info was released by APD versus conjectured by the media.
The AJC was very clear that APD provided false information.
A lot of the false details were actually contained in quotations from an APD investigator/detective.
Was that the guy wearing the fedora?
Here’s an AJC story about the case from Thursday.
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2009/01/08/shot.html
All of the details about the incident are attributed to APD Lt. Keith Meadows.
I believe Meadows runs the city’s homicide dept.
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Four armed men pulled off the robbery at 4:15 a.m. Wednesday, when all customers had left the business and Henderson and a female bartender were getting ready to close up and leave, said Atlanta police Lt. Keith Meadows, commander of the homicide unit.
The robbers tossed a big brick through the bar’s front glass door, shattering it, and stepped through the door frame, Meadows said.
All of them, in their early to late 20s, were armed with weapons —- three with handguns and the fourth might have been carrying a rifle, Meadows said.
“They knew where they were going,” Meadows said. “They may have cased the place out before they went through with it.”
The robbers demanded money and forced the victims into a back office, where they were ordered to lie face down on the floor, Meadows said.
The gunmen stole money from the bar’s cash register, as well as cash that was in money bags in the office.
One of the robbers stood over Henderson and shot him, though he had not resisted or put up a fight, Meadows said. Henderson was shot twice in the head and once in each leg. He died later at Grady Memorial Hospital.
The gunmen spared the woman’s life. “For whatever reason, they didn’t want to kill her,” Meadows said. “One of the robbers specifically said, ‘Don’t shoot the girl.’ “
The suspects closed the office door and fired gunshots through it —- a warning not to call police —- as they fled, Meadows said.
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Jeez…so did Meadows just make this stuff up? It doesn’t sound like the only eyewitness ever told a story like the one Meadows recited…
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“Gentile said he doesn’t have a good explanation for the misinformation that was given to the media by the Atlanta Police Department, aside from saying that much information was being tossed around in the initial hours after the killing.
Much of that early information has turned out to be false, based on interviews with the female bartender, the autopsy and ballistics tests.”
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I retract my supposition and now question the professionalism of APD. Maybe we’re dealing with a morale problem?
BTW, there are comments here from time to time about the apparent lack of information from Decatur PD sometimes. I’d rather see caution and accuracy any time.
Although the crime in and of itself was horrifying, to me it was those added details about “execution style” killing, the female victim hiding in a cabinet, etc., that just made it even more unthinkable. To learn that some of the most terrifying parts of this story are untrue is bewildering, reassuring, maddening, and depressing.
Umm – who cares what was reported!! A person is DEAD. Is this going to change how you view the animals who committed this crime???
No, but the apd is blowing up the details to show the need for less cutbacks on the force. So why not leak horrifying details of a crime to inspire people to post on the blogs!
Paula, I agree some of the more lurid parts of the story weren’t true, but I don’t find any of it reassuring. The guy was still shot in the legs twice and that can be lethal. And he was still killed by a shot in the head regardless of it being done on purpose or not. These thugs should be treated and tried no differently than had they shot him in the head point blank.
Oh c’mon, folks. Cut me some slack here. As I said, it doesn’t at all change the seriously tragic fact that someone died. This was horrible no matter what. Nor did I ever hint that it changed how I felt about how the perpetrators might be dealt with (although please note that the law does traditionally differentiate between degrees of murder; whatever degree this crime counts for is up to the jury to decide).
But, for better or worse, those false, lurid details did affect me in a visceral way (which is what I guess the APD were intending). When I learned they weren’t true, I was relieved, albeit still horrified. I apologize if I didn’t say it eloquently enough.
I’m with Paula on this one.
Though the new details of this crime are still terrifying and tragic, and to those that knew and loved John Henderson must still now go through life without him, to the general public there is a difference between ruthless robbers that shoot people in the legs and those that execute their victims. Both are terrible, but one is certainly more terrifying than the other.
In terms of the APD and some assertions made here…I don’t see why they would purposefully report the wrong story just to come out two days later with an embarrassing retraction. I would say it was just sloppy.
Paula’s right. The details do matter. One version is sensational and cold-bloodedly chilling . The other is stupid and cold-bloodedly reckless. Either way, of course, the perps need to be caught and put away permanently. But the fear in the community is based, to some extent, on the details.
Hold on for a sec, guys. Maybe it’s not bad policing – maybe it’s bad witnessing or …something else? The story of the witness in the cabinet and an execution-style murder sounds a bit…well.. SUSPICIOUS. I don’t think the police made it up. I have a feeling that they reported what was told to them by the witness. “Don’t shoot the girl”…the “girl hid in a cabinet”…”execution-style” I have a feeling that the police will start checking more carefully into witness statements before issuing their own statements. First it was the thug black guys, now the police. I say how about the girl?
Assuming the police arrived and found someone shot twice in the legs and (what looked to be) twice in the head, it would seem reasonalbe for them to make a preliminary judgement that the person was shot “execution style” (i.e., at close range, intentionally). The scenario where the victim gets shot twice in the legs intentionally, and then gets fatally hit in the head by a bullet that flew through a closed door, seems much less likely.