A Portrait Of The Accused

            Gwinnett County Police Officer Michael Chapel was a hard-charging former marine and putative leader of the County’s swat team. The authorities of the City of Buford noted chapel’s success in controlling crime in his area. They then requested his permanent assignment to that city. Chapel was the only known police officer in Greater Atlanta to be so honored by the community he served. For additional biographical information see “A Portrait Of The Defendant” in the State of Georgia Habeas Corpus Petition.

In the period just prior to the murder of Emogene Thompson, Chapel concentrated on controlling drug activity in his zone. Suspecting some Northside officers, especially his daytime counterpart Officer J.P. Morgan, and others of being in the drug trade and engaging in other illegal activities, and frustrated when his tips to police intelligence and narcotics agents were ignored, Chapel formed his own narcotics suppression “Delta Squad” consisting of Northside officers he knew or felt he knew were clean and even Gwinnett County Sheriff’s deputies, including his brother Chris and his father Harold, a reserve Sheriff’s deputy. The Gwinnett County Police Department eventually sanctioned Chapel’s Delta Team in spite of some of its unorthodox methods, and co-opted its administration. This action lessened somewhat Delta’s high rate of successful operations.