Officer under investigation after allegedly failing to disclose murder suspect was his 'brother'

Just before 2 a.m., Spalding County Coroner Michael Pryor was dispatched to a residential intersection blocks away from downtown Griffin, Georgia.

“The main thing I remember about it was the brutality of it,” Pryor said.

Authorities discovered Javarreis Reid shot multiple times, lying face-up on the asphalt, according to police and coroner’s reports.

Pryor pronounced him dead at the scene in the dark early hours of May 9, 2021.

Authorities formally ruled Reid’s death a homicide. He was 25 years old.

“I still get chills,” said Reid’s friend Ray Muhammad. “I think about this young man who had a bright future, a beautiful daughter.”

Looking back on the case, Pryor remembers similar feelings about the shooting.

“As a coroner, that tears us to the bone,” he said. “It's such a waste.”

But he remembers something else from the investigation that followed.

“There’s also been some collateral,” Pryor said.

Pryor wasn’t the only person called to the scene that night.

As is standard, law enforcement also responded. 

According to the initial incident report, Griffin Police Department officer Jonathan Fincher drove to the scene in response “to a report of a person shot.”

When he arrived, he “observed that Inv. King was already on-scene.”

Investigator D.J. King was a young officer seemingly on the rise in the Griffin Police Department.

After interning with the department as a records clerk in high school, King applied for a full-time position in 2017. Internal police records show many of the references he listed in his application gave a glowing recommendation, citing his maturity and integrity.

Still, a pre-employment “personnel evaluation profile” indicated that King had answered a “significant” number of questions in a manner suggesting he was "not answering the survey questions realistically.” (“Did you ever do anything dishonest in your entire life? Answered ‘No.’”; “In your entire life did you ever do anything that was wrong? Answered ‘No.’”).

The survey warned that it was “CRUCIAL” to “carefully evaluate” the applicant.

King was hired in June 2017.

The next year, in 2018, the department featured him in a promotional video posted to the department’s Facebook page, touting him as a “home grown” officer.

In the promo, King describes how he joined the Griffin Police Department out of high school.

“Normally, when you get out of high school, most of us are too young or afraid to jump for the big jobs,” he said. “But I stepped out on that ledge and ‘OK, I’m going to try to be a police officer at a young age and see how it works for me.”

In May 2021, he was tasked with investigating the Javarreis Reid murder.

But according to an internal police record, King had a secret.

His brother was a suspect. And King didn’t tell anyone.

“It was determined during the investigation that Investigator King’s brother Damon Beck is involved in the murder,” the document states. “Investigator King failed to notify his chain of command of the conflict of interest and did not list Damon Beck as a suspect on any documentation.”

Michael Yates, the police chief at the time, disputes this.

“By the time that disciplinary action or investigation took place, he had already disclosed it,” said Yates, adding that Beck was actually King’s “half-brother that he never lived with.” According to Yates, his department investigated King at the time and determined that King's only transgression was "poor documentation of his casework."

The document, a departmental “written reprimand” from November 2021, states that King violated the department’s “duty not to give false or misleading information.”

The date of the violation cited in the reprimand is listed as May 9, 2021, the same day Javarreis Reid was killed.

Damon Beck wasn’t apprehended until more than a year later, in 2023, according to Spalding County Sheriff’s Office records.

When authorities finally arrested him, Beck was booked into the jail accused of murder and aggravated assault.

When reached by phone, King declined to comment for this story.

Sometime later, the GBI opened an investigation into the “handling” of the case, according to a post on the city’s Facebook page.

In an October email, GBI Region 2 Assistant Special Agent in Charge Deanna Jury confirmed the case file for the “investigation into Griffin Police Officer DJ King” remained open.

Meanwhile, the criminal investigation into the murder itself also remains open. Warrants obtained from the Spalding County Superior Court Clerk’s office accused Beck and two others of fatally shooting Reid four times in the back.

Beck and another suspect have been arrested. A third remains at large.

An attorney for Beck declined to comment for this story “on his behalf.”

So far, no indictment has been returned against them. Beck is currently being held in the Spalding County jail on a $750,000 bond.

“You’re prolonging our ability to get closure,” said Reid’s friend Ray Muhammad. “We’re still grieving because you had to get an investigator to investigate the investigator who was investigating the case.”

A city Facebook post confirmed that, by September 2023, the GBI had turned its findings over to the Griffin Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office.

On Sept. 25, D.A. Marie Broder informed Griffin City Manager Jessica O’Connor that the GBI’s investigation had uncovered “policy violations” committed by King and the department’s leader, Chief Michael Yates.

“These violations are egregious enough to have destroyed my Office’s confidence in both Officer King and Chief Yates to effectively perform their duties,” the district attorney stated. “In addition, we can no longer use Officer King as a witness.”

“It is our decision to present this case to a Spalding County Grand Jury,” wrote Broder.

By the time Broder sent her letter, King and Yates were already on administrative leave. Soon, they’d both be gone from the department.

King

According to city personnel records, King “was put on administrative leave on February 27, 2023” because “he was being investigated by the GBI.”

A day after D.A. Broder’s letter was sent, King resigned from the department.

“Considering the situation and through no fault of any of us, I believe it is the best thing for me and for the Department that I desperately love,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

The statewide organization responsible for certifying law enforcement officers—the Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council (POST)—lists King’s status as “resigned in lieu of termination.”

Yates

In an April 28, 2023 letter, Griffin City Manager O’Connor informed Chief Yates he was being placed on “Non-Disciplinary, Administrative Leave.”

A city press release later said she made the move because she “had reasonable cause to believe that pertinent information was being withheld related to the 2021 Reid murder investigation that could implicate King, Yates, or others for wrongdoing.”

“I adamantly deny any wrongdoing or violations of policy, ever,” wrote Yates in an email to 11Alive. “At no time was I presented with any tangible evidence of criminal action or wrong-doing on Kings [sic] part other than poor case management and lack of documentation in the case.”

Yates said he complied with the D.A.’s instructions throughout the case.

“My investigators and myself followed DA Broder’s instructions surrounding this case to the letter,” wrote Yates. “I followed our Nationally Accreditation Standards Policies to the letter as well.”

He further claimed that the department investigated “the King matter” themselves as a “criminal investigation” but determined that King had not “committed any crime or policy violation other than poor documentation of his case work.”

Days after D.A. Broder’s letter was released, Yates attended a discipline conference. In an email summoning him to the meeting, O’Connor told the Chief that “due to your inaction related to Sgt. King’s initial investigation, you may be in violation of City of Griffin Personnel Policy.”

After the discipline meeting, O’Connor wrote Yates saying she could not “determine whether there are intentional violations of City of Griffin personnel policy.” Citing his previously stated desire to retire, O’Connor invited Yates to submit his papers.

Yates submitted his letter of retirement the same day, emphasizing his decision was "contingent upon" his departure being categorized solely as a retirement.

“I am not voluntarily resigning, resigning while under investigation, resigning in lieu of termination or under any other circumstance other than my retirement,” he wrote.

The next day, Yates emailed city officials requesting that a police captain “produce a set of retirement credentials” and give him his service weapon.

“As is customary for retired officers,” he wrote.

In a phone interview, District Attorney Marie Broder said she plans to present the evidence gathered by the GBI to a grand jury in January.

According to her executive assistant, the grand jury will meet on Jan. 11, 2024.

When asked if he thought D.J. King committed any crimes, former chief Yates said, “Unless the GBI has come up with something that I’m unaware of, I do not believe he did.”

When asked if he believed he himself had violated the law, Yates was unequivocal.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

Yates added in an email that his department investigated King as part of the criminal investigation into the Javarreis Reid killing, going so far as reviewing King’s “GPS information on his assigned car” and conducting surveillance with "undercover investigators.”

Yates wrote that his department uncovered “no evidence of improper conduct” and determined that King’s only mistake was “poor documentation of his case work.”

Through City Manager Jessica O’Connor, the City of Griffin declined to comment for this story due to the ongoing investigation.

Now the focus turns to January’s grand jury, as Javarreis Reid’s loved ones hope this long saga brings answers.

“You cannot crush truth,” said Ray Muhammad.