On Dec. 17, 49-year-old Johnny Lorenzo Bolton was shot dead in an apartment in Smyrna, Ga., by a member of a the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team while the team was executing a no-knock drug warrant. Bolton’s name was not listed on that warrant or any other warrant related to the case. According to an attorney representing Bolton’s family, Bolton had been sleeping on a couch when the SWAT team burst in and he was shot twice in the chest the second he stood up. Six months later, almost no details regarding the shooting have been released.
“During entry into the residence, a SWAT team member discharged his firearm and an occupant of the apartment was struck,” a news release revealed, the Associated Press reports. That’s it—that’s virtually the only detail associated with the shooting that has been released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which said it turned over its investigative file to the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office on March 16.
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The family’s attorney paints a much broader picture.
From AP:
The two-bedroom apartment where Bolton lived served as an unofficial boarding house, according to Zack Greenamyre, one of the family’s lawyers. A woman and her teenage daughter lived in one bedroom, another woman rented the other bedroom, and Bolton slept on a couch in the living room, Greenamyre said.
As part of an investigation targeting a suspected drug dealer, police served two warrants at roughly the same time: one at a townhouse where the suspected dealer lived and the second at the apartment where Bolton lived, which police said was paid for by the alleged dealer. The officer who provided sworn statements for both warrant applications said they were based on information from a confidential law enforcement source and surveillance. The officer said the confidential informant bought cocaine at the apartment in September and that drug sales continued there in December.
The officer asked for a “no-knock” warrant, which allows police to enter without announcing themselves. He cited the criminal histories of people who were known to associate with the suspected dealer at the apartment and previous reports of guns seen there.
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