Parents of slain Fulton police officer say waiting for justice for their son was ‘agonizing’

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — The parents of a murdered police officer say they finally got the justice they’ve been waiting on for more than seven years. The man who shot and killed their son was just sentenced to life plus an added 375 years.

In an exclusive interview, the parents of Detective Terence Green spoke to Channel 2′s Tom Jones about their pain and their long road to justice.

Green’s parents say the last seven years waiting on justice has been agonizing. They thought that they would leave this earth before justice arrived. Then they were in court when their son’s killer received a life sentence plus 375 years.

“I said, ‘That’s forever.’ That’s all I thought to myself. ‘That’s forever,’” Bertha Avery Green thought when she heard just how long the man who murdered her son would spend in prison.

Officials say 50-year-old Amanuel Menghesha had faced the death penalty for the 2015 murder of Fulton County Police Officer Terence Green. The death penalty was taken off the table when Menghesha pleaded guilty to malice murder and aggravated assault Friday.

It ended more than seven years of the Green’s long journey to justice.

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“It was just horrible for me to just wait and wait and wait and wait,” Bertha Green said.

She told Jones she and her husband are are getting older and it shouldn’t have taken this long to get justice.

“I said, ‘What are you all going to do? Wait until we die? We’re on our way,’” she said.

Detective Green, a 22-year veteran of the force, arrived at a shots fired call with other officers on Chastain Way when police say Menghesha ambushed the officers and shot Green in the head, killing him.

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Johnny and Bertha Green got the call about 2 a.m. that morning.

“I was tempted not to answer,” father Johnny Green said.

“I just had to hug him. That’s all I could do because I didn’t know what else to do,” Bertha Green said.

The Greens say their deep pain was made worse as the years went by with no movement in the case.

When he was finally sentenced, Bertha Green says Menghesha seemed disaffected by it all.

“No remorse at all. He didn’t look back and say, ‘I’m sorry,’ or anything,” she said. Still, she forgives him. “I have to forgive to live,” she said.

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The Greens say this world lost someone who had so much to give.

“Terence was a good man. He was so good. He cared about people. He was a caring person,” Bertha Green said.

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