Cynthia Bailey and Peter Thomas Help Double Reward for Atlanta Cop Shooter

AJC.com:

An Atlanta reality TV power couple is stepping up to help catch a cop shooter and challenging fellow business owners to join them.

Peter and Cynthia Thomas, of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Atlanta, are offering to double the $5,000 Crime Stoppers Atlanta reward for the man who shot Atlanta Police Officer Christopher L. Smith on Saturday.

Peter Thomas, who owns and operates Bar One Tapas Lounge on Memorial Drive, not far from where Smith was shot, is certain that the gunman intended to kill the officer.

“This is a challenge to business owners,” Peter Thomas said. “They should match my $5,000 to get this cop killer off the street.”

Atlanta Police officials said they appreciate the gesture that will make the reward $10,000, because the greater the reward, the more chance someone will give investigators information.

Smith was working an off-duty security job at an apartment complex on Atlanta’s east side when police say he was ambushed by a man carrying a shotgun.

The man shot at Smith, hitting the officer in the face and leg, authorities said.

Peter Thomas said he lives five minutes from his business and within minutes of the area where Smith was attacked, and believes that those residents and businesses that benefit from police protection should be willing to protect those officers.

“I wouldn’t want to hear that somebody who was trying to protect us was shot,” he said. “If this person will shoot a policeman, he’ll shoot anybody.”

He pointed to the 2009 shooting death of bartender John Henderson at The Standard, a bar less than a mile from Bar One on Memorial that has since changed its name.

Johnquavious Hood was arrested and charged in connection with the shooting, Thomas said, after $50,000 was raised for a reward.

“Not a day goes by when we’re closing the bar that I don’t think about that,” Thomas said. “The reason they arrested that guy had a lot to do with the reward.”

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call anonymously to Crime Stoppers Atlanta at 404-577-8477.

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