The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Senate to vote today on storm relief, jet fuel tax
Lawmakers planning to adjourn week’s special session if the bills pass.
The Georgia Senate’s budget and tax committees Friday approved both a tax break on jet fuel that would help Delta Air Lines and Gov. Nathan Deal’s plan to clean up and rebuild southwest Georgia after Hurricane Michael devastated the area in October.
The approvals set up a final vote by the full chamber today, two days after the House backed the measures. If the bills pass, lawmakers plan to adjourn the weeklong special session.
The bills would allocate $270 million toward hurricane relief and provide $200 million worth of income tax credits to timber and pecan farmers for replanting trees they lost.
The jet-fuel tax break would save Delta about $40 million and other airlines millions more.
The spending measure — which
The day leading up to the shooting was already somber for Jones, who had cremated her father with her twin sister, prosecutors said. Jones and Thornton, who were recently engaged, decided to stay in and order food.
At 10:40 p.m., they used the Uber Eats app. An hour later, Thornton would get the food from Bivines but never returned to his condo.
Bivines testified earlier this week that an upset Thornton came down to his white Volkswagen Beetle, grabbed his food and complained Bivines didn’t bring the food upstairs. At that point, Bivines said he tried to resolve the issue Thornton had and only asked him two questions: “What’s wrong?” and “What happened?”
Bivines said Thornton approached him in an aggressive manner and motioned with his hand in his pocket as if he had a gun, so Bivines grabbed his gun, fired four shots at Thornton then drove away, he testified.
“I felt harmed,” Bivines said in court Thursday. “I thought he was going to shoot me.”
Prosecutors argued Bivines aggressively baited Thornton in to coming back to the car and intentionally fired shots at him. They also disputed Bivines’ story noting that no weapon was found on Thornton and he didn’t make a threatening move like he had one.
And if Bivines were truly afraid for his life, they said, he had other options, including calling police for help.
“Words alone are not sufficient to justify killing someone,” Fulton County Senior Assistant District Attorney Lauren Travis said during closing arguments Thursday.
Defense attorney Jackie Patterson said his client panicked.
Surveillance video from that night shows Thornton getting the food and exchanging some words with Bivines.
Bivines admitted to firing four shots, two of which prosecutors said were fired after Thornton was already on the ground.
“Anyone involved in a situation like that isn’t going to wait around,” Patterson said about Bivines’ behavior.
Instead of calling 911 for help, prosecutors said Bivines chose to sit at his girlfriend’s job for six hours after the shooting.
He wouldn’t talk to anyone until he received a call from Atlanta police Detective Andre Lowe asking him to come to police headquarters to tell his side of the story.
That night, Bivines said he searched “uber eats driver” and “uber eats driver news” to see what had been reported about the shooting. When he came across an online article identifying him as a potential suspect, he decided to call a lawyer.
Bivines turned himself in to authorities the Monday after the Saturday shooting.