There is supposed to be a final investigation report coming out at the end of the month and then we will see what happens from there. The shooters have not been officially named yet, but the names which are coming up as most likely to have been present are Chance Oxner and Billy Shane Harrison. There is apparently also a Black officer who was present, and he is seen in one of the videos. His role is not yet clear and he remains unidentified.

Oxner had been the leader of a small drug task force unit for a long time. Harrison had recently worked as a security contractor in Iraq and is thought to have a military background.

Part of what is confusing is that the men apparently resemble each other, and it has not been made clear as to who is who in the video, or which one was an actual shooter. There was one officer present who was behind the wheel of the Escalade the whole time who did not shoot, and we don't have any confirmation on who is who.

I consider the identification of Oxner being there as pretty definite, but it is currently unknown if he was one of the two shooters.

Billy Shane Harrison has been identified but not verified as one of the shooters, and a big part of my doubts surround the fact that he has a facebook page with pictures that don't look a whole lot like anyone in the videos, but the Billy Shane Harrison in Facebook is the Georgia LE guy in question.

Something mentioned in another forum is that Georgia is NOT one of the states where it is OK to shoot a fleeing felon. That is a major point against the officers involved, and if Harrison was one of the shooters and had been hired due to his prior training in an ROE where it is acceptable to shoot a fleeing suspect or fleeing felon, then there is major liability on the part of GBI although criminal liability on Harrison may be a gray area. I think it would probably support a manslaughter conviction though.

Regardless of "fleeing felon suspect" doctrine, it should also be noted that had Ayers been high on dope and just gotten his knob polished by the girl, both are misdemeanor offenses and would not normally justify a "guns drawn felony stop" treatment.

The fact that the girl was not even present and that they had been under surveillance for some time could indicate some prior malice on the part of the senior officer who made a strategic decision to use speed, surprise and violence of action on Ayers in order to gain the psychological shock value derived from threatening Ayers life at gunpoint.

Obviously the officers were prepared to back up their threat of deadly force with actual deadly force, but that having entered into the equation is where the Malice issue could enter the case, and if that Malice was considered an element of their decision to draw down, or the group leader deciding on a life threatening escalation of force, then it could support a murder conviction.

So the real question is going to be when does it become malice to use life threatening "shock and awe" tactics as a means of gaining an upper hand in negotiating for cooperation from someone who has met with a suspect? That issue is the one which could have much wider implications in the way law enforcement officials interact with the public.