Lighting and security at the Augusta Mart gas station was so poor it contributed to the 2019 murder of Richmond County Sheriff’s Inv. Cecil Ridley, a court has found.
The Augusta Mart owner is offering to settle the wrongful death civil suit filed by Ridley’s widow, Sharon Ridley, on behalf of his children, attorney Jack Long said. The amount of the proposed settlement has not been released.
Augusta prosecutors previously announced plans to seek death by lethal injection for Ridley’s alleged killer, Alvin Theodore Hester Jr. Hester, 28, now represented by Nathanial Studelska of the Northeast Georgia Capital Defender’s Office, remains in custody at the Charles B. Webster Detention Center awaiting trial.
Ridley, 51, was an investigator with the sheriff’s narcotics division participating in voluntary patrols which had the stated intent of getting guns off the streets. On Nov. 19, 2019, he and other officers pulled up at the Augusta Mart, a former Circle K, at 1713 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
According to law enforcement, warrants and other documents, Hester had told deputies he worked at the store. He went inside as they arrived. While another deputy tried to detain Hester, the convicted felon raised a gun and shot Ridley in the chest.
Officers raced Ridley to AU Medical Center, but he died within about 45 minutes.
Law enforcement and Ridley’s family contend Hester wasn’t a customer or regular store employee, but a drug dealer allowed by the store owner to provide protection while using it as a front to sell drugs, enabled by the store’s lack of exterior lighting or cameras.
When Hester was arrested, deputies found three guns – two 9-mms and a .38 – on his person. They found extra magazines and a .22 revolver in his bag.
After the shooting, officers searched a broken-down green Chevy Tahoe parked adjacent to the Augusta Mart, where they said Hester kept a stash of drugs he sold from the store.
The SUV was last registered to Hester’s aunt, Felicia Bush, whose rental home in Apple Valley was Hester’s last address.
In the Tahoe, investigators found substances resembling crack cocaine, powder drugs and marijuana as well as scales and ziplock bags. At the Apple Valley house they found guns, shell casings, ammunition and scales.
The Ridleys’ complaint contends store owner Kyoungseb Jung knew or should have known the store was a high-crime area after deputies were called to adjacent properties “hundreds of times” from 2015-2019.
The complaint spotlights an immigrant-owned Augusta business’ claim that a language barrier might prevent management from knowing what activities were taking place at their properties.
While Jung declined to replace burned-out bulbs on two light poles and one the eaves of his store, “Hester provided protection for the defendant,” it said.
Speaking through an interpreter, Jung said in a deposition that since he owned the store, it had never been robbed. He denied Hester was a store employee or knowing he was a gang member or drug dealer.
Jung said he paid everyone who worked at the store under the table. His clerk, Yun Lee Sands, said she called Hester “Bam Bam” because his bleached braids resembled the Flintstones character. Jung called him something else.
“We called him Bang Bang,” Jung said.
Jung, who was at the store at the time of the shooting, claimed to not know if exterior lights were burned out. “I don’t know, because I never paid attention to it,” he said.
