Tony Carr cleared a year after bank robbery, officer-involved shooting | News

COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM)- It's
been a year since the robbery of the MEA Federal Credit Union and the Columbus
police shooting that left two men dead.

Important questions that lingered about Tony
Carr, one of the men killed that day, have been answered.

"After careful review, I find nothing, in either the investigatory report
from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, nor the follow up investigation
conducted by the Office of the District Attorney, to indicate that Tony Carr
was involved in the robbery of the MEA [Federal] Credit Union," said District
Attorney Julia Slater in a press release Friday afternoon.

"Although
this office has never implicated Mr. Carr of any wrongdoing, I believe it is
important for me to release this finding," Slater continued. "Because of the
developments in the follow-up investigation, I am not yet in a position to
release the next step for this case."

Carr
was an Army-employed civilian who worked at Fort Benning's Directorate of
Emergency Services as a fire inspector.

On
September 2011, Carr went to his home on Gardenia Drive during his break to let
his dog out. At the same time, robbery suspect Alrahiem Tolbert ran from the
MEA Federal Credit Union off Macon Road on foot, saw Carr, and jumped into his
truck.

Moments later, both men were dead.

Local
leaders from the NAACP and Carr's family have been asking for answers
surrounding this case for months.

"The DA has her time and her cycle that she works on," said Nate
Sanderson, the President of the Columbus Chapter of the NAACP. "That's not the
purpose of this case. What we are talking about is we're talking about having
our elected officials be accountable to the community. They owe us an update on
what is going on."

"He
was not involved in this robbery," said Schanta Newman, a friend of Carr. "It
was not in his character. I believe he was hijacked and held hostage in his own
vehicle."

Mark Post, candidate for District Attorney in the Chattahoochee
Judicial Circuit, has repeatedly criticized the District Attorney for her delay in
deciding whether a crime was committed in the course of the officer's response
to the credit union robbery.

Post
added that in addition to the lack of closure for the family, there is the
additional issue of keeping an officer on indefinite leave.

"Officer
Vincent Lockhart Jr. has been on paid administrative leave since that day in
September of last year," Post said. "I suspect that Officer Lockhart would like
to get back to work. And, of course the taxpayers are paying for that."

Slater
told News Leader 9 last month that she had a good reason for the delay.

"I can assure you that I have been working diligently on this matter and
it will be resolved as soon as possible," said Slater. "Having
performed this task in my role as District Attorney, I know that each
officer-related shooting must be handled on a case-by-case basis and there can
be no artificial timeline."

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