Off-Duty Cop Shoots Belligerent Bar Patron 17 Times in the Back | Crime Alert 9AM 11.18.25

The family of a Georgia man shot by an off-duty Atlanta police officer pushes for charges after an autopsy shows he was hit from behind 17 times. The highest court in Florida keeps the execution date for a man found guilty of raping and killing his former boss. Drew Nelson reports.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Alart hourly update, breaking crime news Now. I'm Drew Nelson.
The family of a Georgia man shot by an off
duty Atlanta police officer pushes for charges after the autopsy
shows he was hit from behind seventeen times. The Fulton
County Medical Examiner released the new report showing that forty
four year old Lynton Blackwell was shot seventeen times and

(00:21):
almost every round struck his back. Georgia Bureau of Investigation
is still working the case and will send the file
to the Fulton County District Attorney for possible charges when
they finish. His manager and close friend, Timothy Coleman, spoke
with Uxia.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
I just failed on my knees because I couldn't believe it,
and I couldn't believe that it was seventeen times in
the back, like all the shots. It's not one shot
in the front, it's all seventeen in the back.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
The shootings took place late on October eleventh, behind five
paces in in Atlanta's upscale Buckhead neighborhood. Officer Gerald Walker
was off duty and working a side job. The GBI
says Walker went outside after a dispute inside the bar
and followed the man around the corner toward the back lot.
Coleman says the officer chased him down and gunned him down.

(01:08):
The GBI says he got into a car and placed
an item into the small of his back. They said
Walker gave commands about the deceased dropping a gun before
he fired. Coleman told WXIA that none of that explains
the firing pattern.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
If he wasn't pointing a gun, that you are doing anything,
what does that have to do with you shoot him
in the back seventeen times? That means he wasn't facing you.
He wasn't a threat, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Coleman says he and his friend came from a neighborhood
called Little Vietnam by the people who lived there.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Big old family from the East Late Meadows. I mean,
it's a loving family. Man. I just I just hurt
from him. Man. You know, he just leaves a lot behind.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Family members told reporters Blackwell was a father, a brother,
and a longtime force in the local music scene under
the name B. Green. They said there was some kind
of dispute inside the bar before he was let out.
Police later said a gun was found at the scene.
The officer was not heard Coleman made it clear what
he wants now.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
I want him locked up. Geral Walker needs to be
behind bars.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
The GBI investigation will decide what goes forward. The Fulton
County District Attorney will then decide if a grand jury
we'll hear the case. The Atlanta Police Department is also
running an internal case as the family awaits answers. More
crime and justice news after this. The highest court in

(02:29):
Florida keeps the execution date for a man found guilty
of raping and killing his former boss. The Florida Supreme
Court turned down all claims made by Richard Barry Randolph's lawyers.
The ruling keeps Wednesday's execution data in place. The lawyers
have been trying to stop the lethal injection. They argued
that the state's three drug cocktail could cause cruel and

(02:50):
unusual suffering. The argument was tied to the inmate having lupus,
which is a sickness that affects the body's immune system.
The Supreme Court rejected the argument. The court writing quote here,
Randolph concedes that he was diagnosed with lupus in nineteen
ninety and has had the disease his entire life. The
court pointed out the facts were old, saying, quote, the

(03:11):
current three drug protocol has remained essentially unchanged since twenty seventeen.
The court stated, quote that being the case, the facts
on which this claim is predicated have been available since
at least twenty seventeen. The court found the claim was
too late quote. Randolph's current claim was raised eight years
later and is thus untimely. The court's decision was unanimous,

(03:32):
though one justice was absent. Lawyers are expected to appeal
to the Supreme Court of the United States. Randolph, aged
sixty three, will die after Governor Ron Desantist signed the
order for the death on October twenty first. Randolph was
convicted of killing Minnie Ruth McCollum in nineteen eighty eight.
McCollum was the manager of a handy waste store in
East Palatka. Randolph had worked at the store before. Court

(03:56):
records show Randolph tried to break into the store safe
in August of nineteen eighty eight. McCollum caught him. They
began to fight. Randolph then hit, strangled, and stabbed McCollum.
He also sexually assaulted her. He left the store and
took her car. Three women saw Randolph leave. They saw
the store was a mess through the window, and they
called the sheriff's office. A deputy found McCollum still alive.

(04:18):
She went to the hospital in a coma from which
she could not be woken. She died six days later
from injuries to her brain. Deputies arrested Randolph soon after
he was at a grocery store in Jacksonville trying to
get money and cash in stolen lottery tickets. Investigators say
Randolph told them about the attack. He led them to
bloodied clothes that he had thrown away. Randolph was found

(04:40):
guilty of murder, armed robbery, sexual battery, and grand theft.
He was sentenced to death in nineteen eighty nine. If
Randolph is executed, he would be the seventeenth inmate put
to death this year in Florida, this being a new
record for the state. The past record was eight executions
in one year, happening in eighty four and twenty fourteen.
The governor also so set an execution date from Mark

(05:01):
Allen Gerald's on December ninth. For the latest crime and
justice news, follow Crime Alert hourly update on your favorite
podcast app with his Crime Alert. I'm Drew Nelson,