GBI SAYS PASTOR WASN'T INVESTIGATION'S TARGET

Ayers Fatally Shot; Video Shows Authorities Fired at His Car

ATLANTA - A 28-year-old Franklin County pastor killed by drug task
force agents this week was a father-to-be who settled in a small town
where he felt called to the ministry, a relative said Thursday.

Jonathan Paul Ayers, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia,
was not a target of the investigation that ended in gunfire at a
Toccoa gas station Tuesday, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman
John Bankhead said.

Instead, a passenger in Ayers' car - an unidentified woman - was the
target of the investigation, authorities said. Ayers was shot about
2:30 p.m. after he dropped the woman off at a store in downtown Toccoa.

Drug agents approached Ayers for questioning, but he tried to avoid
them, putting his car in reverse and hitting one of the agents,
Bankhead said.

A grainy surveillance video from a nearby store shows two drug
task-force agents emerge from a black sport utility vehicle before
Ayers' small car backs up. The two men fire into the passenger side of
Ayers' car, and then it takes off with the agents running behind it,
the video - posted on a Toccoa TV station's Web site - shows.

Ayers died about an hour after he had surgery, Bankhead said. The drug
agent who was hit by Ayers' car was treated for minor injuries, he
said.

Bankhead would not reveal the identity of the woman who was in Ayers'
car, but said she's been charged with cocaine possession and
distribution.

On Thursday, Ayers' brother-in-law, Matt Carpenter, said the pastor
had nothing to do with drugs.

"Any question of his character, particularly involving something like
drugs, is just ridiculous," he said.

Carpenter described Ayers as a man of strong faith: He said though
Ayers and his young wife had wanted to live closer to family, they
settled near the Lavonia church where Ayers felt called to pastor.

"They were exactly where they were supposed to be," Carpenter said,
adding that they recently had led the small congregation's first-ever
mission trip, to Africa.

Carpenter said Ayers' wife, who is 16 weeks pregnant, is grappling
with the idea of being a single mom.

"That's why it's hurting us all so badly," he said.