When a Fulton County sheriff’s deputy was shot in downtown Atlanta in April 2025, the incident was initially described as a drive-by attack on law enforcement, and Sheriff Pat Labat publicly promised that the gunman would be found and held accountable.
More than a year later, however, Atlanta News First investigative reporter Brendan Keefe obtained surveillance footage and police records that presented a far more complicated sequence of events, including an undercover deputy pursuing a man without visible police lights or sirens, stepping from an unmarked car in plain clothes with a gun drawn, and identifying himself as police only after gunfire had already begun.
The admitted shooter, Ivan Watson, was questioned for more than four hours but ultimately released without charges after Atlanta police concluded that he did not immediately recognize Deputy Evens Lafond as a law enforcement officer and may have believed he was defending his brother from an armed attacker.
The case was later closed, even though the public had originally been told that police were searching for a suspect in a drive-by shooting and that swift justice would follow.
The Shooting Was First Described as an Ambush
The shooting happened on April 24, 2025, after Lafond responded to a report involving a suspicious person in downtown Atlanta.
Keefe reported that Lafond was working in plain clothes and driving an undercover Honda equipped with concealed emergency lights. Surveillance video showed the vehicle pursuing an unhoused man along Forsyth Street near Trinity Avenue before jumping a curb.
The footage did not show the Honda’s lights or siren operating during the pursuit.
Lafond then stepped out wearing jeans and a T-shirt, drew his firearm, and chased the man, who moved out of the camera’s view.
Moments later, shots were fired from a nearby vehicle, and Lafond was struck in the lower leg.
Initial reports described the event as a drive-by shooting in which a gunman opened fire on a deputy from a moving car before escaping. Atlanta police and the sheriff’s office also used language suggesting that Lafond had been ambushed while carrying out his duties.
“We’re going to get this young man, and we’re going to hold him accountable,” Labat told reporters after the shooting. “Either we’re going to find him or he’s going to be found.”
That confident public account left little room for the possibility that the shooter had not understood he was firing at an officer.
Watson Said He Thought His Brother Was Being Attacked
The following day, Georgia State Patrol troopers stopped a vehicle believed to have been involved in the shooting and detained Watson and his girlfriend for questioning.
During a roughly four-and-a-half-hour interrogation, Watson admitted firing at Lafond but said he had seen an armed man chasing his brother and believed the man was an attacker.
Watson told investigators that his brother had previously been antagonized and that, when he saw a plainclothes man pursuing him with a gun, he reacted out of fear.
“He turned the gun toward me and shot, and I returned fire,” Watson said during the recorded interview.
He insisted that Lafond fired first and said surveillance cameras should support his account.
Watson also told detectives that he did not learn Lafond was a deputy until seeing news coverage after the shooting.
“If he would have said, ‘I’m an officer,’ I would have said no,” he said.
That explanation did not erase the fact that Watson fired a dozen rounds in a busy downtown area, but it gave investigators a possible reason why he may not have knowingly targeted law enforcement.
The case therefore depended heavily on what the surveillance footage showed before the first shot.
Video Shows the Deputy Identified Himself After Being Hit
Keefe reported that Atlanta police had obtained the surveillance footage within about an hour of the shooting, yet the public did not see it until Atlanta News First acquired a copy from a source inside the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.
The video showed Watson’s brother running down the street while Lafond’s unmarked Honda followed without visible emergency equipment activated.
Lafond then exited the car in plain clothes and pointed his weapon toward Watson’s brother, who was outside the camera frame.
After the gunfire began, Lafond was struck in the leg, dropped his weapon, and moved toward cover.
Only then could he be heard identifying himself.
“I’m the police! Police!” Lafond shouted while dragging himself behind the undercover car.
Atlanta police investigators concluded that the footage showed Lafond had not identified himself as an officer to Watson before firing his weapon.
That finding directly challenged the original impression that Watson knowingly attacked a clearly identifiable deputy.
From Watson’s position, the scene may have appeared to involve an armed civilian chasing his brother from an unmarked vehicle, rather than a law enforcement operation.
This does not make firing in a public street harmless or automatically justified, but it helps explain why prosecutors and investigators may have believed they could not prove criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt.
Records Contradicted the Deputy’s Written Statement
The surveillance footage also raised questions about Lafond’s account of whether he fired during the incident.
In a written statement obtained by Atlanta News First, Lafond said he did not discharge his weapon.
“I never got a chance to fire a shot,” he said.
Investigators, however, found a single 9-millimeter shell casing beside Lafond’s unmarked Honda, separate from approximately 12 .40-caliber casings recovered near the location where Watson said he fired.
The Atlanta police incident report concluded that Lafond discharged his weapon before backup arrived.
Keefe’s report also showed officers discussing the separate casing at the scene and questioning whether the deputy had fired.
The discrepancy is significant because Watson’s central defense was that Lafond pointed and fired first, causing him to believe he was under attack.
A deputy making an inaccurate statement about discharging a weapon does not by itself establish misconduct, since traumatic events can affect memory, but the physical evidence and video demanded closer examination than the original public narrative received.
Police Equipment Appeared After the Shooting
The surveillance video also showed a bystander helping Lafond put on police equipment before other officers arrived, according to the Atlanta police report.
Someone additionally activated the undercover Honda’s siren after the shooting but before backup reached the scene.
Body-camera recordings from the first responding officers showed the concealed police lights operating when they arrived, but Keefe noted that the surveillance footage did not show those lights during the chase itself.
These details were important because the visibility of police markings and emergency equipment went directly to whether Watson could reasonably have known Lafond was an officer.
If the lights, siren, and equipment became visible only after the gunfire, they could not have warned Watson beforehand.
The difference between an undercover officer and an armed civilian is clear to the officer involved, but it may not be clear to the public when the officer is wearing ordinary clothes, driving an unmarked vehicle, and has not announced his identity.
That uncertainty creates obvious risks during fast-moving encounters, especially when armed civilians believe another person is in immediate danger.
Watson and His Girlfriend Were Released
After separate interviews, Watson and his girlfriend were released without charges.
The Atlanta Police Department later closed the case, concluding that Watson had not immediately recognized Lafond as a deputy.
The decision was striking because Watson had admitted firing the shots that wounded him, while authorities had initially described the attack as an ambush and publicly promised an arrest.
Yet the available evidence made the case considerably more difficult than the early statements suggested.
To convict Watson of intentionally attacking an officer, prosecutors would have needed to overcome the surveillance footage, Lafond’s delayed identification, the lack of visible police signals during the pursuit, and the physical evidence indicating that the deputy had fired despite saying otherwise.
The investigation did not conclude that Watson had behaved wisely. It concluded that the evidence did not support the original version strongly enough to bring charges.
Atlanta Police Refused to Release the Key Video
Keefe reported that Atlanta News First repeatedly sought the surveillance footage from Atlanta police after the case was closed.
The department initially denied being the investigating agency, even though records showed that it had led the case.
After the news organization challenged that response, the request was transferred to the department’s open-records division, where it remained unresolved for months.
Atlanta police eventually released body-camera footage, incident reports, and interrogation recordings, but continued withholding the surveillance video that investigators themselves had cited when closing the case.
In July 2026, the department formally denied the request, arguing that releasing the footage could compromise security or reveal confidential surveillance.
That explanation is difficult to reconcile with the video’s central role in a closed investigation of major public interest. When authorities publicly describe an incident one way and later rely on unseen footage to reach the opposite conclusion, transparency becomes essential to maintaining trust.
The public was asked to accept both the original promise of accountability and the later decision to file no charges without being allowed to review the evidence that explained the change.
Lafond Was Honored and Later Promoted
Despite the contradictions identified in the investigation, Labat presented Lafond with a commendation for bravery in May 2025 while the deputy was still recovering.
Lafond was later promoted to sergeant in January.
The sheriff’s office did not grant Keefe an interview with either Lafond or Labat.
Lafond’s attorney, Jim Dahlquist, said agency policy required all media requests to go through the sheriff’s public affairs office and therefore prevented Lafond from personally commenting.
The commendation and promotion do not necessarily mean the sheriff’s office rejected Atlanta police’s findings, but they add another layer to a case in which the official public story was never fully corrected.
Labat had promised that the shooter would be held accountable, yet Watson went home without charges and the deputy whose account conflicted with the evidence received an award.
Surveillance Changed the Meaning of the Encounter
The case began with a simple and alarming headline: an undercover deputy had been wounded in a drive-by shooting.
The surveillance footage did not dispute that Watson fired the bullet that struck Lafond, but it changed the context surrounding that act.
It showed an unmarked car pursuing Watson’s brother without visible lights or sirens, a plainclothes deputy emerging with a gun, and the word “police” being shouted only after the shooting began.
It also showed why investigators doubted Lafond’s written claim that he never fired.
Those facts do not turn Watson into an innocent bystander or make a 12-shot response safe, but they explain why the case could not be treated as a straightforward attack on a clearly identified officer.
Keefe’s reporting illustrates how quickly early law enforcement statements can become the accepted account of an incident, even when investigators already possess evidence pointing toward a more complicated reality.
In this case, the video did more than add detail. It changed the legal meaning of the shooting, helped free the admitted gunman, and raised difficult questions about why the public was told one story while the most important evidence remained hidden.
Ed spent his childhood in the backwoods of Maine, where harsh winters taught him the value of survival skills. With a background in bushcraft and off-grid living, Ed has honed his expertise in fire-making, hunting, and wild foraging. He writes from personal experience, sharing practical tips and hands-on techniques to thrive in any outdoor environment. Whether it’s primitive camping or full-scale survival, Ed’s advice is grounded in real-life challenges.
