(WYFF TV) STEPHENS COUNTY, Ga. — A pastor was shot and killed following a drug sting in Stephens County, Ga., on Tuesday, and the officers involved and friends of the pastor are giving different versions of what led up to the shooting.

The Stephens County coroner confirmed that 28-year-old Jonathan Ayers was pronounced dead at Stephens County Hospital on Tuesday.

Shoot first, apologize to pregnant widow later... (photo from Jonathan Ayers's blog, click to read)

Ayers, a father-to-be, was the pastor of the Shoal Creek Baptist Church. He maintained a personal blog linked off the church’s Web page, jonathanayers.blogspot.com.

Sheriff Randy Shirley said that officers had been involved in an undercover drug sting at an unnamed establishment in Toccoa. He said the target of the sting was a passenger in Ayers’ car. Shirley said Ayers dropped the woman off and went to the Shell station. He said the officers followed Ayers there.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shirley said, outside the Shell station, the plain-clothes officers identified themselves with a badge. The officers said that Ayers put his car in reverse and struck an agent. They said they opened fire on Ayers when he drove toward the second officer. Two shots were fired in the car, one hit Ayers. The officers said Ayers sped away and crashed about a half mile from the Shell station. They said they found him conscious and alert, but he died a short time later.

The woman who was the subject of the drug sting was arrested, but police are not identifying her yet. She is charged with selling cocaine. Other charges against her are pending.

Investigators said they did not find drugs in Ayers’ car.

Just how dangerous must this woman have been to have three undercover plainclothes officers firing bullets around a public gas station?  Apparently dangerous enough to risk hitting a gas pump and causing a huge explosion that could’ve killed everyone at this busy gas station in broad daylight.

So why did the pastor flee when police “identified themselves with a badge”?  Well, when you have three aggressive men not dressed like cops running toward you in a public place waving guns, you might just not notice the badge (if, indeed, the cops aren’t lying about producing their badges).  Or maybe the pastor was having an affair with the woman and didn’t want his pregnant wife to find out.  Maybe he saw the badges, but the woman was a prostitute and he didn’t want the negative press for his church.  Or maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person…

One of many e-mails received by WYFF News 4 said:

“Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009, Jonathon Ayers was shot and killed by a Toccoa police officer. Ayers was at a walk-up ATM machine to get money to have tires put on his wife’s car. After getting his money, he saw men running at him. Thinking he was to be robbed, he ran for his car. He was shot through the door and the bullet went through his lung and liver. He eventually wrecked his car and was taken to Stephens County Hospital. The bleeding of his liver could not be stopped and Ayers died in surgery.

“Later, it was found that the police officer who shot him thought Ayers was involved in a drug deal. When Ayers ran, the officers open fired.”

News 4′s Kisha Foster spoke to a woman outside Shoal Creek Baptist who identified herself as Jonathan Ayers’ sister-in-law. She described him as a “godly man.” She said there are “a lot of lies going around about what happened, and the police department is trying to cover up what they did.”

The two agents are on administrative leave with pay until the investigation is complete.

The War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical Non Alcoholic Tobacco-Free) Drugs™ demonizes and dehumanizes to such an extent that on the mere suspicion that a man might be buying them from a woman, police feel justified in shooting at the suspect in a crowded public place, risking a devastating gasoline explosion by doing so.  Shoot first… get a paid vacation from work… and apologize to the pregnant widow later.

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-01-28

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-01-28.mp3)

You Stashers rock!  Plenty of comments and chatter over in the Guestbook, and 95 of you signed up on Day One.  Consider yourself the O.S. (Original Stashers) – come meet me at Seattle Hempfest and tell me you’re an O.S. and I’ll have li’l suttin suttin fo ya.  Holla!

(Oh, that sounds funnier than it types, especially coming from a translucent spud like me.)

Today on the Stash something a little different.  We talk to a lot of doctors, activists, politicians, and musicians, but every so often, we like to talk to your average everyday cannabis consumer.  Tim Carll was a student at the University of Central Florida who found himself in a Rachel Hoffman-like predicament with law enforcement: busted for weed, set up for a drug sting involving massive amounts of ecstasy pills, and a scared 20-year-old facing the possibility of death.

Not from marijuana.  From prohibition.  Could be you.  Could be your kid.  Could be a niece or nephew or even just the part-time server/student you remember from your favorite lunch hangout.  Marijuana’s never killed anyone.  Marijuana prohibition has killed quite a few.

Then stick out your toungue and say “ahh,” Dr. Mitch Earleywine is here with your Cannabis Science.  Today we look at teens and the reasons they don’t use or quit using marijuana.  Here’s a shocker: it’s not because it’s hard to get or expensive.

UPDATE: Based on reporting from a Stasher in the Comments, it seems the Rachel Morningstar Hoffman story will air on Dateline NBC this Friday, Jan 23, at 10pm ET.  Unless, of course, a plane lands in a river. — “R”R

Don’t miss tonight’s Dateline NBC (10pm ET/PT, 9pm CT/MT) for their full hour of coverage of the case of Rachel Morningstar Hoffman.  She was a 23-year-old FSU grad who was killed during a botched drug sting last May.  She had to go on an undercover buy/bust operation as part of her plea deal for minor possession of cannabis.  The cops lost track of her, and her body was found a few days later.

Or not.  Looks like we get one-hour of thrilling coverage of the airplane that landed in the Hudson River.  You know, the story where NOBODY died?  The story that directly impacts perhaps a couple hundred of people?  It’s much more important to cover a story about a 1-in-11 million risk faced by the 11% of the population that travels by air.  One dead Florida girl who sold pot and was murdered due to police negligence in a drug sting with two known violent felons?  We’ll get to that when there’s nothing more important going on.

You can tell Dateline NBC what you think about the programming change at Dateline@NBCUNI.com.