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#Post#: 178--------------------------------------------------
~ Gregory Lawler, 19 Oct 16, (GA) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: October 5, 2016, 8:10 pm
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Execution Set For Atlanta Cop Killer--
Gregory Lawler killed one Atlanta police officer and wounded
another on Oct. 12, 1997.
October 5, 2016
[IMG]
HTML http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z96/BuzzC/Misc/lawler.jpg[/img]
A man who was sentenced to death for killing an Atlanta police
officer will have his sentence carried out later this month.
On Wednesday, a warrant setting the execution of Gregory Lawler
was signed, according to the AJC, for any time in the seven days
beginning Oct. 19.
Lawler killed Officer John Sowa and wounded his partner,
Patricia Cocciolone, on Oct. 12, 1997, after the two officers
brought Lawler's intoxicated girlfriend home.
The Georgia Department of Corrections said Lawler will be the
seventh inmate executed this year, more than any other since the
mid 1970's, when capital punishment was reinstated in Georgia.
HTML http://patch.com/georgia/atlanta/execution-set-atlanta-cop-killer
8)
#Post#: 179--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Gregory Lawler, 19 Oct 16, (GA) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: October 10, 2016, 5:03 pm
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On Oct. 12, 1997, Officer John Sowa and his partner were
dispatched after a witness reported seeing Lawler hit his
girlfriend with a bag. Lawler and Donna Rodgers had been walking
home from a nearby bar.
Sowa and Officer Patricia Cocciolone saw Rodgers, intoxicated,
sitting on a curb in a parking lot and Lawler trying to pull her
to her feet. Lawler walked away and went home when he saw the
officers.
The two officers decided to give Rodgers a ride to the couple’s
Buckhead apartment.
When Lawler opened the door, he shouted obscenities at the two
officers as Rodgers walked in. Then, according to testimony,
Lawler grabbed an AR-15 carbine he kept by the door and fired 15
perpetrator bullets, which can pierce police body armor.
Cocciolone, hit three times, was able to call for help. Sowa,
25, was killed — shot five times — and his body fell beside a
parked car near a sidewalk on Morosgo Way in Buckhead.
After a six-hour standoff, a hostage negotiator persuaded Lawler
to surrender. In the apartment, police found the assault rifle
used to kill Sowa and wound Cocciolone, along with numerous
other firearms and several types of ammunition...
#Post#: 182--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Gregory Lawler, 19 Oct 16, (GA) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: October 19, 2016, 12:35 pm
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Georgia man to be executed for 1997 killing of police officer--
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Georgia on Wednesday evening plans to execute a man who opened
fire on Atlanta police with an AR-15 rifle in 1997, killing one
officer and critically wounding another after they had given his
intoxicated girlfriend a ride home.
Gregory Paul Lawler, 63, is scheduled to be executed by
injection at 7 p.m. EDT at a state prison in Jackson. The
execution would be the seventh this year in Georgia, matching
Texas for the most death sentences carried out in a state in
2016, according to data from the non-profit Death Penalty
Information Center.
There have been 16 executions in the United States in 2016,
compared to 28 last year, the center's data shows.
Lawler was sentenced to death in 2000 after being found guilty
in the murder of officer John Sowa, 28. A second officer,
Patricia Cocciolone, survived the shooting with a shattered
pelvis, damaged intestines and permanent brain injury. She
testified at Lawler's trial, according to a Georgia Supreme
Court summary of the case.
The synopsis said Lawler and his girlfriend had been drinking at
a bar near their Atlanta apartment the night of the October 1997
shooting.
Police were summoned by a witness who thought he saw Lawler hit
the woman with a bag as they walked home. Lawler fled when
officers arrived.
The officers decided to help the girlfriend get home. At the
apartment, they were met by Lawler, who fired at the officers 15
times, the case summary said.
Both Sowa and Cocciolone still had their pistols strapped into
their holsters when backup arrived. Lawler surrendered after a
six-hour standoff, according to court records.
At his trial, a coworker testified Lawler had talked about
having “an extreme dislike” of police and that if they ever
tried to enter his home he would be "ready for them," court
records said.
"Instead, he could only offer his confused and angry insistence
that he had acted within his rights, which provoked his jury
further and alarmed even his defense counsel," according to the
petition, which sought to have Lawler's sentence commuted to
life in prison without parole.
Source:
HTML http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-georgia-execution-idUSKCN12J1PM
8)
#Post#: 183--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Gregory Lawler, 19 Oct 16, (GA) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: October 19, 2016, 11:01 pm
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U.S. Supreme Court: No mercy for Atlanta cop killer--
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
JACKSON ~ Gregory Paul Lawler, 63, will soon be put to death for
murdering an Atlanta police officer 19 years ago.
The United States Supreme Court denied a stay of execution
shortly after 11 p.m., clearing the way for Lawler to get a
needle filled with a fatal dose of the sedative pentobarbital.
The lethal injection had been slated for 7 p.m., but executions
are routinely delayed by last-gasp legal appeals. The Georgia
Supreme Court announced Wednesday evening that it had denied
late defense requests to halt the execution. And the state Board
of Pardons and Paroles rejected a clemency request Tuesday that
focused on Lawler’s recently diagnosed autism.
Lawler was convicted of murdering John “Rick” Sowa, a
28-year-old Atlanta policeman, and wounding Sowa’s partner, Pat
Cocciolone, on Oct. 12, 1997, just moments after the two
officers walked Lawler’s intoxicated girlfriend to the front
door of the apartment they shared.
Sowa and Cocciolone were sent to investigate a report of a man
hitting a woman behind a business near the intersection of
Lindbergh Drive and Piedmont Avenue. They found Lawler trying to
pull his girlfriend, Donna Rodgers, who was drunk, to her feet.
After Lawler walked away, Sowa and Cocciolone drove Rodgers
home.
Lawler greeted the officers at the door with obscenities and
told them to leave. When Sowa tried to stop Lawler from closing
the door, Lawler grabbed an AR-15 loaded with armor-piercing
bullets and fired at the fleeing officers.
Sowa was shot dead a few feet away. Cocciolone, gravely wounded,
managed to call for help.
Both were wearing bullet-proof vests. Their guns were still
holstered.
Lawler spent much of the day Wednesday visiting his brother,
Gerald, at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near
Jackson. At 3 p.m. he was given a physical and was then served
his last meal — a rib-eye steak, a baked potato with sour cream,
asparagus, dinner rolls with butter, French onion soup,
strawberries, pistachio ice cream and apple juice. Prison
officials said he ate all of it.
Lawler’s lethal injection will be the state’s seventh in 2016,
the most executions Georgia has carried out in a year since the
death penalty was reinstated nationwide in 1976. Texas is the
only other state that has carried out as many as seven
executions since Jan. 1.
Source:
HTML http://www.ajc.com/news/local/supreme-court-mercy-for-atlanta-cop-killer/m98e1uu4X6g7yUP9dj0WGN/
8)
#Post#: 184--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Gregory Lawler, 19 Oct 16, (GA) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: October 20, 2016, 8:03 am
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Georgia executes convicted killer of police officer--
Thursday, October 20, 2016
JACKSON, Ga., Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Gregory Lawler, convicted of the
1997 murder of a police officer, was executed in a Jackson, Ga.,
prison.
Lawler, 63, was executed by lethal injection late Wednesday. He
did not record a final statement and declined a prayer, the
Georgia Department of Corrections said Thursday.
State-appointed lawyers attempted a last-minute stay of
execution Wednesday, saying Lawler is on the autism spectrum,
diagnosed only last month, and that his execution would violate
the 8th Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual
punishment. The appeal was rejected by the Georgia Supreme Court
at 7 p.m. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected it shortly after 11
p.m. Lawler was put to death at 11:49 p.m. Wednesday.
Source:
HTML http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/10/20/Georgia-executes-convicted-killer-of-police-officer/8211476965207/
8)
Lawler became the 66th person executed in Georgia since the 1976
reinstatement of the death penalty, and the seventh executed in
the state this year.
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