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Frank Lumpkin III, accused of aggravated assault in the October
shooting of a 16-year-old — whom he found in his wife’s stolen sport
utility vehicle — had his case dismissed Monday by a Muscogee County
grand jury.
The teen, who was allegedly driving the 2006 Lincoln
Navigator, suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen and lower back. He
was hospitalized, then transferred to a youth detention facility. He was
later adjudicated on a charge of theft by receiving stolen property and
sentenced to five years in a youth detention facility.
A
15-year-old who was not in the vehicle the day of the confrontation but
admitted stealing the SUV received the same sentence.
Lumpkin,
51, was with three friends on Oct. 21, 2008, when he spotted his SUV at
a Fort Benning gas station. The vehicle allegedly had been stolen two
days before. Lumpkin pulled in behind it and, with a gun in hand,
approached the vehicle, he testified at a juvenile court hearing.
Lumpkin also testified that he accidentally shot the 16-year-old as
he held the teen with his right hand and the handgun in his left. The
teen threw the Navigator into reverse, slamming the SUV back into the
front of Lumpkin’s truck, Lumpkin said. Squeezed between the Navigator
and the gas pumps and caught by the side mirror, he hooked his elbows
inside the window as he was dragged backward and that’s when his gun
went off, he said.
“We’re very appreciative and relieved,” said
attorney Frank Martin, who represents Lumpkin. “It’s something I wished
Mr. Lumpkin did not have to go through. We’re glad that it’s over.”
If convicted, Lumpkin would have faced five to 20 years in prison.
Derrell Dowdell, the teen’s attorney, said special prosecutor J.
David Fowler, of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of Georgia, didn’t
interview all the witnesses.
According to Dowdell, Lumpkin and
three other men, all of whom were armed, were heard using racial
epithets to describe the three youths in the stolen Navigator, witnesses
told him. One of those young men, also 16, said he was pistol-whipped
during the altercation, according to a police report filed by the
injured teen. The young man said one of Lumpkin’s companions beat him
and witnesses corroborated the teen’s story, Dowdell said.
Witnesses also told Dowdell the three men pointed their weapons at
bystanders who tried to approach the scene. According to one of the
eyewitnesses, one of the men pointed his weapon at both her and her
7-year-old son, Dowdell said.
“I am extremely disappointed, but I
am not shocked,” Dowdell said. “That does not mean it cannot go before
another grand jury.”
In early March, District Attorney Julia
Slater asked state Attorney General Thurbert Baker to appoint a special
prosecutor in 94 cases, citing conflicts of interest arising from her
previous work as a defense attorney.
Martin said Fowler went to
great lengths in his investigation, subpoenaed all the witnesses and had
all of them appear before grand jurors.
“Our position all along
was that Mr. Lumpkin was making a citizen’s arrest, which he had a
perfect right to do,” Martin said. “I think this no bill validates that
what Frank did was self-defense and within the law.”
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