Man shot by police extradited back to Georgia
Zane Campbell has been recovering at Erlanger hospital
Two months after police shot him in a standoff, Thomas Zane Campbell is returning to Georgia.
Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Don Poole ordered Campbell back to Ringgold during a hearing Thursday afternoon. Campbell is wanted in Georgia, where a jury convicted him on March 28 on three counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He skipped his trial, but officers found him 13 days later, sitting on a friend’s front porch with a gun pointed toward his own chin.
Though unconfirmed by law enforcement, Campbell’s attorney said officers shot him eight times. For the last two months, he has recovered at Erlanger Health System.
On Thursday, an officer pushed Campbell in a wheelchair toward his attorney, Charles Wright. Campbell wore a green medical gown, blue pants and a sling over his right arm, where Wright said officers shot him at least four times.
The hearing was a mere formality. Staff at the governors’ offices in Georgia and Tennessee have already signed the extradition paperwork, and Wright did not argue against the move from Erlanger. After about 3 1/2 minutes, Poole ended the hearing, and an officer pushed Campbell away.
Catoosa County Sheriff Gary Sisk said members of his agency are arranging Campbell’s transfer. Because of his conviction in March, Campbell is in the Georgia Department of Corrections’ jurisdiction, but members of the sheriff’s office may have to first bring him to the county jail, where corrections officers could then pick him up.
Wright said he hopes someone in Georgia brings Campbell to another hospital, so he can continue to recover
“They’re going to treat him with indignity, I’m confident,”
Wright told Campbell’s father, Clarence, after the hearing. “… They’re going to treat him like a piece of meat. He’s been up here, where they treated him like a human being.”
Thomas Campbell’s mother, Deborah, said he has been in trouble with police since he was a teenager, when he developed an addiction to painkillers. After a 2008 conviction for DUI, theft by receiving and attempted burglary, he was no longer allowed to own guns.
But in November 2015, officers cited him multiple times in Ringgold for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. On March 28, the second day of his trial on those charges, Thomas Campbell told his father he thought he was having a heart attack in the Catoosa County Courthouse parking lot. He drove away, and his parents said they didn’t see him for weeks.
The trial continued without Thomas Campbell, and the jury convicted him. A judge sentenced him to 13 years in prison. Deborah Campbell said she tried to call her son several times afterward, but he didn’t pick up. Finally, on April 10, members of the U.S. Marshals Service found him in a home in a rural stretch of Trion.
According to Wright, Thomas Campbell later told a member of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that he held a gun against his own head. Officers told him to drop the weapon. He didn’t. Finally, the officers opened fire, hitting him on the right arm and above the knees.
The GBI has investigated the shooting, and Special Agent in Charge Greg Ramey said he anticipates presenting the case file to District Attorney Herbert “Buzz” Franklin “within the next couple of days.”
On Thursday, Deborah Campbell said her son still needs medical attention. Surgeons replaced his kneecaps, she said. He can’t walk. A bullet damaged the tissue in his right wrist, leaving him unable to use his hand normally. He can ball his right fingers into a fist, she said, but he can’t release them back.
MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL
Wright has filed a motion for a new trial in the Catoosa County case, though a judge has not set a date for his argument. He will argue that Thomas Campbell “prejudiced himself” to the jury by skipping the last day of his trial. Wright will argue that this was part of a mental breakdown that should have left Thomas Campbell unfit to stand trial.
Since the shooting, Wright has said he thinks Thomas Campbell suffered from schizophrenia, though he didn’t realize it before the trial. He didn’t seem to trust Wright, even when the attorney presented him with a plea deal that would have put him in a probation detention center for six months — a sentence about 97 percent shorter than what he would ultimately end up with.
“Looking back on it,” Wright said, “it was bizarre. He wasn’t thinking logically.”
Earlier this week, Deborah Campbell said that her other son found a journal that Thomas Campbell started to keep in 2015. She said he kept a log of what types of cars drove by their house in Chickamauga, and whether vehicles passed through multiple times. She said he also wrote about how people were spying on him with cameras and recorders.
He also wrote about ending his own life, multiple times. Deborah Campbell said he wrote about how his previous arrests disappointed his father. She isn’t sure if this new information will actually be helpful.
“All I can do is give it to Charles [Wright],” she said. “I don’t know. I know he needs help. He thinks he let the whole family down.”