South Fulton County

Mother devastated officer not indicted in son's shooting death

SOUTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — The mother of an unarmed man killed by police said she's devastated after a U.S. attorney decided Thursday not to indict the officer who shot her son.

Channel 2 Action News has been covering this case for five years.

“This case is devastating because of the ripple effect I think it'll have,” said family advocate Marcus Coleman with the Save Ourselves Organization.

Coleman has been fighting for Ariston Waiter’s family since they’ve been pushing for a murder indictment of former Union City police Officer Luther Lewis after he shot and killed Waiters in December 2011.

Waiters was at an apartment complex where a fight broke out, and when someone called 911, Lewis showed up and immediately tried to arrest Waiters. Investigators concluded that Waiters had nothing to do with that fight.

Lewis ended up chasing Waiters, getting him on the ground face down while the two of them were alone, and put one hand in cuffs. Lewis shot Waiters twice in the back and Waiter’s mother believes the shooting was in cold blood.

Mrs. Waiters said she’s been let down by two grand juries that chose not to indict since the 2011 shooting. She hoped Thursday’s meeting with U.S. attorney John Horn would bring justice.

“She was hopeful still, of course, that there would be some type of pathway to justice for Ariston,” Coleman said.

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They didn’t get the justice they wanted in the form of an indictment. Horn said there’s not enough evidence.

This is after Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said Lewis should have never arrested Waiters, after some of Lewis’ fellow officers said the shooting wasn’t justified and that Lewis had a history of making bad decisions.

Horn told Mrs. Waiters that the officer had a right to make a mistake, when he assumed Waiters was involved in the fight.

“Something doesn't sit well with Mrs. Waiters when you can say that an officer has a right to make a mistake and that mistake ends up in the loss of life,” Coleman said.

She didn’t talk to Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes after Thursday’s meeting, but called her on the phone saying, “Now I’ve got to heal on my own."

“Officers have a very difficult job. I know they make split-second decisions that they're trained to do, but yet and still they should've have this protective barrier around them that's causing people to be maimed and their loved ones taken away,” Coleman said.