Special Agent in Charge JT Ricketson says they provide an independent look at each case.

PERRY, Ga. — According to GBI spokesperson Nelly Miles, the officer who shot a suspect in Wheeler County Thursday marks the 31st shooting by an officer the statewide agency has investigated this year. That breaks down to an average of about one every four days statewide.

Special Agent in Charge of the agency's Perry Office JT Ricketson says they're some of the most serious cases the GBI handles.

To be clear, Ricketson's office is not the one investigating the Wheeler County shooting. That responsibility falls to Special Agent in Charge Lindsey Wilkes and the GBI's Eastman office. The GBI doesn't automatically investigate shootings by officers. The local agency has to ask them, but the Wheeler County Sheriff's Office did request the GBI's help in this case, and Ricketson, who's worked dozens of shootings by officers throughout his career, thinks it was a good idea they called in an independent investigation.

"I think it's important because you don't want to have an agency brought under scrutiny saying, 'You were trying to cover something up,' or, 'You were trying to hide something,'" said Ricketson.

He says a GBI use of force investigation typically takes months to complete and pulls from dozens of pieces of evidence including toxicology reports, body camera video, and 911 calls to try to piece together what happened. "We will gather as much as we can, I will dedicate this office to it," he said.

And because the GBI is an outside agency, Ricketson says they can avoid the conflicts of interest that might arise if a department decided to investigate itself. "Good, bad, or indifferent, we will put all the facts that we find," said Ricketson. "We don't discriminate from any piece of evidence. We put everything in the file to get to our district attorney."