Crime Weekly - S3 Ep209: Crime Weekly News: Former Atlanta Police Officer Charged With Murder of Lyft Driver

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Former Atlanta Police officer, Koby Minor, was arrested on May 15th and charged with the murder and aggravated assault of his Lyft driver, Reginald Folks. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod    ADS: 1. HelloFresh.com/CrimeWeeklySweet - Use code CRIMEWEEKLYSWEET for FREE dessert for life!

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Upwork.com. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. So real quick, when we're talking about news, I think this is a newsworthy story to mention. We have been nominated for Creator of the Year again for the Clue Awards, content creator of the year, I believe. So obviously a big deal for us because this award is nominated by you guys. Anybody attending CrimeCon from what we understand received a specific code for them and they were able to vote on their favorite podcast. And right now we are nominated with four other great podcasts. I believe it's, I don't know them all. I think it's the prosecutors, Date With Dateline.

Oh, I do know them all. Body Bags, True Crime Garage, and then Us. So some good podcasts in there and great company. And we just learned about it this week. So thank you very much. Stephanie is super excited about it. I am. I am excited. I'm excited to go. And hopefully, fingers crossed, we win this week. So thank you very much. Stephanie is super excited about it. I am. I am excited. I'm

excited to go and hopefully, fingers crossed, we win this year because Derek was devastated. We could be two-time losers. Derek was devastated last year. I don't like losing. I don't like losing. He was like, I don't care if we win. I don't care if we win. And then we didn't win. He was like crushed. Overall, all kidding aside, it is an honor to be nominated. There's amazing podcasts. All the big podcasts are at Clue Awards, most of them anyways. So to have 6,000 people attending this event and to have the one award that's nominated by the people attend us to be nominated for that when we only started this show three years ago, it's a big deal. It's a big deal for us and it's win or lose. Honestly, it means the world of us.

So thank you very much. So on that note, I don't know how to segue this. On that note, we're going to get into a sad story. Not a good one at all, but definitely one worth covering because I'm quick to give police officers their flowers when they do something right. But when they do something wrong, we have to call them out. And even more so, we have to call them out because a lot of these individuals, they're given so much power.

They can take away the freedom of another. So when they cross that line, when they do something, whether it's on duty or off duty, it's my job and everyone else's who's in this profession to police our own, to show that we are going to hold our own people accountable when they mess up because it doesn't just reflect negatively on them. It reflects negatively on the entire profession. And we have our problems already with society and the community, and we're not going to gain that trust back unless we really crack down on this type of behavior. So let's get into it. Former Atlanta police officer, Kobe Minor, was arrested on May 15th and charged with the murder and aggravated assault of his Lyft driver,

Reginald Folks. Now, unfortunately on this channel, it's not uncommon for us to hear about people killing other people, buter's motive for this murder may surprise you. And Stephanie's going to fill you in on all the details. So according to the arrest affidavit, Kobe Miner told the Union City Police that he was leaving the home of a fellow police officer. He ordered a lift shortly after midnight on Wednesday, May 15th. Reginald Folks arrived to pick him up. Miner got into the back seat. The vehicle started traveling down State Road 14. And then the former Atlanta police officer, Kobe Miner, he claims that his Lyft driver, Reginald Folks, was talking on the phone using the vehicle's Bluetooth option.

And Folks was apparently speaking in a language that Minor didn't understand. Minor also claimed he heard another voice in his ear, and he asked Folks to stop the car, but the driver ignored him. When the car did stop at a red light, Minor tried to get out, but he claims the door would not unlock. When Folks reached into the back seat, Minor shot him three times in the head before breaking a window to escape the car. A witness who pulled up to the scene shortly after she stopped when she And he believed that he'd been in the process of getting kidnapped for this gay fraternity. Okay. So on the surface here, this sounds like,

I don't know, maybe something's going on with Minor that we need to dive into further, but I want to take a quick break and then we'll come back and discuss it. All right. So to break this down real quick, what we're looking at here on the surface, it sounds initially like it could be a situation where this individual prevented his kidnapping and or murder. That's the narrative that's at least being presented by the offender, right? It's pretty far-fetched. So what he's saying, whether you want to believe him or not, is a different story. That he was under the impression, I'm assuming based on the phone call, being in another language, that maybe Reginald was talking to someone in a different language intentionally, basically planning out what they were going to do, where they were going to drive him to, all these different things. So he's picking up on that thinking, okay, there's something going on here right now that I'm not aware of. This doesn't seem right. And so when the car comes to a stop,

according to Minor, he tries to get out, he can't. And then Reginald allegedly reaches in the back seat and that's when he shoots him three times. Yes. I would love to be involved in this case to look at the ballistics of it all to first of all see if he did in fact jump out the window or if he just shot out the window. Yeah. Like did he just break the window to make it look like he couldn't get out of the car? Yeah. To build this narrative. And then also, I don't know this for certain, but I'd have to know the make and model of this vehicle. And vehicles now are basically computers on four tires.

Right. So everything is recorded and documented. And I would love to know not only the Bluetooth call that would obviously be on the phone records. You would be able to confirm that. But also, is there a way, and I'm assuming there might be, where you can tell if the vehicle's doors were locked at that moment or were they unlocked? Because I'm sure there's a activity log that would tell you passenger side door unlock, because it's obviously a command that has, you push the button, that command goes to the ECU, the electronic control module, and then it goes to whatever module that controls

that lock to unlock it. So there's definitely a frequency that's being sent and the computers documenting all of that. So I would like to see if you could tell if the doors were locked, if there was an attempt to unlock the doors that was overwritten by maybe the driver who had like a child safety lock type system on, right? Basically what I'm getting at here is are we able to corroborate Miner's story through actual data from the vehicle that can't be misconstrued or redirected or changed to fit his narrative? It sounds like on the surface, based on the charges, if they were able to do that, that didn't pan out. But what is your take on all this? I don't believe it. I don't

know if I made that abundantly clear or not, but. Even, yeah, I don't either. I think he sounds a little delusional. A little something's going on there. Something's going on. A little delusional, a little paranoid. And check this out. That might be because of something or something that had happened in the past might give us a better indication of what was going on with Colby Minor because he had joined the Atlanta Police Department in 2018. And at the time of his arrest, he was on unpaid leave due to a previous arrest from December of 2023. Not that long ago. No, not that long ago. Not that long ago at all. When he got in a car crash, and then when the police came,

they found 20 Xanax pills in his car after the crash. And he was charged with possession of a controlled substance, and police said they believed he was impaired at the time of the crash. So could he have been on something? I mean, 20 Xanax pills doesn't sound like, unless it was his prescription, but he wouldn't have been on something? I mean, 20 Xanax pills doesn't sound like, unless it was his prescription, but he wouldn't have been charged for possession of a controlled substance if it was his legitimate prescription. Yeah, exactly.

So it doesn't sound like something you're taking medicinally if you have 20 Xanax pills not prescribed, probably recreationally, which means is he taking other recreational drugs that may affect his perception of reality? Yeah, that's possible. That would be the best version for him, right? As far as a defense. I think also Minor knows that there is a growing concern about safety when it comes to these Uber and Lyft drivers. 99% of the time, you're going to be safe. But we talk about it where there is a background check that's conducted on these drivers, but it's not 100%. He's a cop though. And he's got it. Well, no, he wasn't a cop technically. He wasn't a cop at the time, but he knows what he's got to say. But he's got a gun. I can understand me being a little paranoid of Uber or Lyft drivers because

I'm just a little girl and I don't have a gun on me or really any form of self-defense because i live in new york state where we can't even carry pepper spray but kobe minor police officer with a gun in his possession which that's also kind of iffy because i don't know if you're on unpaid leave can you carry your your your sidearm like are you allowed to do that i I don't know if it's his duty weapon. So what can happen is you will have your duty weapon if he's on, he said he was on paid leave or unpaid? Unpaid, unpaid. Unpaid leave. So it depends. It depends on the policy and procedure. I mean, he's on unpaid leave, but he's still a police officer. I don't know if they would have taken his service weapon from him during that unpaid leave. They might have. But even if they did take his service weapon, if he had a off-duty weapon registered and anybody can have that, then he could still have access to that. They wouldn't take his off-duty weapon. Normally they wouldn't do that unless he was involved in some type of domestic violence situation where that's the same for everybody. So

what we could be looking at here is one, an off-duty weapon, which he would have been legally allowed to have on him. And we could also be looking at a situation where if he was allowed to have his duty weapon still, then yeah, he would be within his legal right to be carrying that if that was within his policy and procedures. But I want to go back to the overall picture here because it's an interesting question, not specifically for this case, but just in general. How does perception play into defense, right? When we're looking at this, we're looking at it from the outside looking in, and there may have been an investigation. I'm sure there was an investigation done where they were able to talk to the individual that Reginald was talking to on the other end and were able to check some things out and probably confirm pretty definitively that Reginald was not trying to recruit him for some type of sex cult, gay fraternity. Gay fraternity of all things.

Gay fraternity. So they probably were able to rule that out. However, man, woman, doesn't matter. Let's just say for the sake of this conversation, it's a woman in the backseat who owns a gun, right? If her perception is that she's in fear of her life based on behaviors, the way she's perceiving them, could that be a defense? And I'm saying that as a question, because I don't know. Could that be a question if we could prove- No, you don't shoot someone in the head three times. I agree. I completely agree.

Like, that's a little overkill, right? So you're in the mindset of, if it were you in the back of the car and you happen to be in possession of an off duty weapon, not an off duty weapon, but a concealed carry, right? And you being by yourself, you couldn't hear the phone call. You get a little nervous and you, you know, he reaches in the backseat, maybe to grab a charger. By the way, I want to make sure I'm really clear here. I don't believe that happened, but I'm just saying if that were everything were on the up and up because your perception and you were in fear of your life, could you get off

on something like this? I don't think so because it's so unless you may be in Florida. It's so it's so subjective. I mean, like somebody could just be incredibly paranoid or having some sort of anxiety episode and their perception of their environment is going to be much more, you know, sort of red flaggy and just more anxious and intense. So, no, I don't think based on your perception, you could just shoot someone in the head three times and then be like, well, I thought he was recruiting me for a gay sex fraternity. Right.

No, I don't. I don't. I don't think that's a valid defense. No, I think he might have a grounds for a possible, you know, temporary insanity defense based on whatever was in his system. If there was anything in his system. But and I would wager to say there probably was. He came from the home of a friend. It was after midnight. At the very least, he'd been drinking that night. Yeah, I mean, definitely that. And I'm sure he's

charged with probably second degree, not first degree murder. It doesn't appear there's premeditation. But I ask you that question to say, I agree with you completely. I don't think it's a defense. And I think this goes back to a bigger issue, right? In this case, it's a little different because this is a former police officer or at the time, a current police officer who just happened to be on leave. But in general, when we have individuals out here who are in possession of firearms legally, of course, there needs to be better training. There needs to be better background checks. We got to make sure that anybody who's carrying the arm is in the right mind state to do so because we don't want a situation like this.

If this was a situation where he did have some type of episode, right, where he was seeing something, which I'm not completely sure of that either, but we want to make sure that the people who are out there carrying firearms concealed understand their rights and understand what would justify a shooting. And their responsibilities. Absolutely. You can't just, you have to be able to articulate something that a reasonable person would agree

with you, not just your perception. Because this is a grown ass man. Okay. A big grown ass man. He could have easily raised his gun and been like, freeze. You know, like his police training taught him to do. Oh my God. Freeze.

You know what i mean like okay if if he was on duty and he felt a suspect was threatening to him would he just start shooting him of course not i agree probably not right he'd probably say wrong freeze you know and like don't make another move i have this what do you say what do you say when you what do you say when you encounter a suspect and you want to make them stop moving or drop your weapon? He never would. He was reaching in the back seat. What would you say?

Freeze. I can tell you in my career, I've never come up on a suspect and said, freeze. I've never done it. I've never done it. It's what they do on TV, man. That's what I'm saying. Bad boys that did that. You're saying police officers never run up and say, freeze.

We'll usually give a command. No, never. What's the command? Hands in the air. He's driving, dude. What else are you going to say? If you're pulling your firearm, it's because you're in belief they could hurt you or someone around you lethally, right? In a fatal way.

So usually it's drop the knife drop the gun you know something like that don't reach back here it's not freeze where they just like freeze well i'm saying he's reaching back i would say freeze you know like don't move your hand another inch towards me i would probably use some more profanities but you have a gun he's driving the car i guess he could just you know go off the road and kill you both. So in a way, I suppose that Kobe could have made the argument that his victim was in possession of a deadly weapon as well, considering he was driving the vehicle that they were both in. But damn, like, why wouldn't you just wait? Why wouldn't you just wait till you got to your kidnapped destination? You know, you got the gun you know that he's gonna park and then you're you're in a better position to take him out if you want and then also you know i don't know gauge the situation a little

bit more geez no this is uh completely unjustified shooting and he he was rightfully charged he would have to add another wrinkle to the story where he would say, you know, when he stopped and turned into the backseat, I saw a metallic item in his hand that I thought was a firearm. He didn't go that route because there wouldn't be anything in the area to prove that. But he still could have said he thought he saw it, you know, at least, at the very least, which also makes me feel like this guy ain't right in the head, you know, like because it really does seem delusional. It doesn't seem like it's a story he's making up to get away with this because he could have made up a dozen better stories. Right. He could have said that the guy was like thing at the end.

He could have said the guy was like, oh, I hate police officers. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to run us both off the road. So we shot him, you know, at a red light. He could have said a million things, but the gay fraternity and him reaching in the back seat, this story doesn't even sound like something that could potentially get him a lighter sentence. Stephanie, even if it's all true, even if it's exactly the way he said it was, it still does not justify shooting him.

That's the point here. And I mean, also, the Uber driver's talking in another language. We confirm that, right? That's something that's going on. So we know that this individual speaks multiple languages. Was there a conversation between him and Miners? We don't know. We don't know what was said beforehand. But either way, like I said, even if it's all exactly the way Minor described it, in my opinion, it would not justify his actions. And therefore, he still would have been charged with the second-degree murder if it was in fact second-degree murder and aggravated assault. in multiple ways like that to make sure they get them on something, even if the judge decides to reduce or warrant the lesser charge over the more severe charge, which I don't see happening in this case, but you never know with our justice system, anything's possible. He might go the whole mental health route as well, where he might say, listen, there's some things going on with me. I wasn't in the right state of mind. I was seeing and hearing things that were not there. I acted in a way

that was not conducive with who I am as a person. I need help. I'm seeking help. He could go that route as well, knowing that his case is so weak based on the way he's describing it. I mean, it looks like Georgia has stand your ground. But we're still in the self-defense area where two elements must be present before the use of deadly force is justified. One, the danger to either the actor or a third person, like if there had been somebody else in the car with Minor, that must be imminent. And two, the actor, Minor in this case, must reasonably believe that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury to self or a third person. And even in minor's own words, he didn't say this guy's going to kidnap me and kill me. He said, this guy's going to kidnap me and bring me to a

gay fraternity. You don't believe you're going to die. You don't have any reason to believe you're going to die. You just think you're going to be recruited into this fraternity that I've never heard of. And also, you don't know for sure that there's imminent bodily harm. You don't really know what's happening. He said, I thought that's what was happening. So he's killed his own defense for self-defense right off the bat with his initial statement. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. It's not good all the way around. I feel bad for Reginald's family. Here's a guy out there trying to earn a living. It's a dangerous job to do that, to do Lyft, to do Uber. You're out there. We always talk about the people getting the rides. How about the person driving the cars? They're also at risk as well. So overall, it's just a bad situation and

there's no getting him back. But ultimately, I do think Minor needs to serve his time. And again, this goes back to how we started this episode. This was a police officer, clearly unfit for duty. And even before this, clearly was the case. So I'm sad it took this amount to identify this individual, but in no way, shape or form should this man ever be a police officer again, more than likely he'll be spending a significant amount of time in prison, which is probably where he belongs at this point based on what occurred. Yes. And that's how these things go. It is. Absolutely. Well, we're thinking about the family of Reginald Folks and

everyone involved. I'm sure there's a lot of people here mourning his loss and, again, just a terrible situation. And unnecessary. Yep. There's no winner here. We will keep you updated if there's some type of breaking part of the story where it changes trajectory based on something we were unaware of. We will absolutely let you guys know. And if you find out before us, make sure you weigh down in the comments below.

And while you're there, like, comment, subscribe. You know, we don't mention that a lot, but we do appreciate it. We're still growing as a channel and we want to continue to do so. So we would greatly appreciate it. Any final words from you, Stephanie Harlow? No, I'm good. Guys, we appreciate you being here. We will see you later this week for the Menendez Brothers part six episode on audio on Friday and YouTube on Sunday. Everyone stay safe out there. See you soon. Bye.