Prosecutor speaks after Byron cop gets indicted. Police ‘don’t have unlimited protections’

The district attorney for Macon, Crawford and Peach counties said Tuesday that her office couldn’t find legal justification for a Byron police officer to shoot a suspect during an alleged car theft last year, which is why she presented the case to a grand jury, and the grand jury decided to charge the cop .

District Attorney Anita Howard defended her decision to take the case to a grand jury in a statement Tuesday. Byron Police Chief Wesley Cannon announced Carroll’s indictment Monday and said he disagreed with the charges.

Howard said in her statement that it’s not a police chief’s role to “determine whether a grand jury’s decision is appropriate or only support the criminal justice process when it finds law enforcement actions’ justifiable.”

James Ryan Carroll was the former police officer with the Byron Police Department who was indicted Friday. He’s charged with aggravated assault and violation of his oath.

Carroll allegedly shot a suspect, Kory Matyas Karpich, trying to drive off with a stolen car. Carroll fired into the car repeatedly and injured Karpich, according to an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Howard said in her statement that GBI agents “shared concerns about the legality of Carroll’s actions.”

She said Karpich had a criminal background, but that didn’t justify Carroll’s actions. Karpich initially faced charges stemming from the incident, but hasn’t been indicted, court records show.

Howard said prosecutors use the same process for reviewing every criminal case brought to their office by law enforcement. They must determine if the shooting was justified based on facts, evidence and applicable law. If they can determine it’s justified, they’ll close the case.

Howard “could not establish the sufficient and unequivocal legal grounds necessary to justify this shooting,” and that’s why she took the case to a grand jury, She also said Carroll and GBI agents testified in front of the grand jury before the indictment was returned.

Cops ‘do not have unlimited protections’

Howard said the members of the grand jury represented the “collective conscience of the community” and they decided charges were necessary.

“Our system has checks and balances designed to ensure objectivity and a thorough review of the facts and evidence in this and every case,” said Howard. “There is a reason why (police shooting) investigations rely heavily upon independent objective agency peer reviews.”

She said she respects law enforcement’s service to the community, but they are trained to act lawfully, even during stressful situations. While they are offered significant protections under the law, “they do not have unlimited protections and nor should anyone,” she said.

Since Howard took office in 2021, she has received 12 officer-involved shooting cases, she said. Only two of those, including the one against Carroll, resulted in criminal charges. The other 10 were deemed justifiable.