ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A north Georgia pastor was shot to death by police when he struck an officer with his car after he was seen in a vehicle with a drug suspect, authorities told CNN.
Authorities say they found nothing illegal in Jonathan Ayers' car after he was slain during a drug sting.
Jonathan Ayers, pastor at Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia, Georgia, died after the incident Tuesday afternoon in the nearby town of Toccoa, Georgia, police said. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) is looking into the shooting.
An undercover drug task force team had set up an operation at a local business, and had a woman under surveillance -- someone they had bought drugs from on two previous occasions, GBI spokesman John Bankhead told CNN Thursday.
The officers saw the woman in a car with Ayers and saw what they believed was a drug transaction, Bankhead said. They followed the car as Ayers dropped the woman off at a gas station.
The undercover officers wanted to question Ayers about what they had just seen, he said. "They approached the vehicle. They were in plain clothes. They identified themselves as police officers, which civilian witnesses say happened. They also had badges around their necks."
Ayers put the car in reverse and backed up, striking an officer, Bankhead said.
According to Bankhead, Ayers then put the car into drive, and another officer fired into the car, hitting Ayers, because he thought his life was in danger.
"The subject kept going and drove off," Bankhead said. "And later he ran off the road. He was taken a local hospital, went into surgery and died an hour later."
The incident was caught on the gas station's surveillance camera.
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