CARLTON FLETCHER: ‘One call’ garners attorney Nugent’s support

“Reach out … I’ll be there … you can always depend on me.”

— The Four Tops

We all do it. We assume we know someone’s character based solely on something we heard, on an assumption or even on a random act that we might have witnessed.

But people’s character goes much deeper than a single encounter, and sometimes people just make mistakes. It’s the human in us all.

Quamyia Jones, a 17-year-old Albany mother, was shot and killed Aug. 11. She was visiting a friend’s house when she became another in a growing list of victims of the local violence that appears to be on the verge of becoming epidemic. Through that wonderful world of social media, keyboard “gangstas” have taken to posting boasts that have lately started to come back to haunt them, and posters on ghoulish anti-social media sites have sent out anonymous attacks to try and provoke violence.

It’s a very strange world we live in, Master Jack.

We don’t know the circumstances surrounding Jones’ death: Right now, only her killer does. But we do know she was a teenage mother who will not have an opportunity to raise her child.

I don’t know the details surrounding the following, but I know enough of it to know there are some people in this world who do some pretty remarkable things.

Jones had come into Albany City Commissioner and restaurateur B.J. Fletcher’s restaurant a few days before her untimely death, and when Fletcher realized that she had, she asked Albany Police Department Chief Michael Persley about Jones’ family. Persley knew the family, and he told Fletcher they had fallen on hard times. So Fletcher reached out.

In her conversation with Jones’ family, Fletcher learned that they had little — meaning not enough — money for a funeral. Fletcher talked with Vera Williams at Meadows Funeral Home, who assured the commissioner that the funeral home had held costs as low as possible. Fletcher gave the family $500 and told them she wanted to make a call on their behalf.

So Fletcher did what she’s done before in times of emergency. She called a man who has several times before reached into his wallet and given to this community: so-called “celebrity” attorney Ken Nugent. And not to turn his well-known slogan into a cliche, but in this case — as in past instances — it was “one call, that’s all” for Nugent.

Fletcher was out of town over the weekend, at the law enforcement meeting in LaGrange at which Attorney General Chris Carr talked with nine agencies from across the state. She had only a moment to talk, but she told me this, “I reached out to Ken because he’s come through for this community in the past, and I just laid out for him this whole situation (with Jones’ family). In less than 15 seconds, he said, ‘Paid in full.’”

Nugent has come under attack for his flamboyant style, and he is currently in the midst of a lawsuit in which he and his firm are being charged with malpractice, malfeasance and even violating the state’s RICO Act. And in all honesty, the facts of that suit do not paint a very rosy picture of the Nugent firm.

But, as Fletcher noted, the Atlanta-based attorney who has a satellite office in Albany has never hesitated in reaching out to this and other communities to lend a helping hand. Twice Nugent donated funds following natural disasters in southwest Georgia: the storms of Jan. 2 and 22 in 2017 and in the wake of Hurricane Michael last year.

Fletcher and others have been criticized for speaking out in support of Nugent, but perhaps it should be noted that the local words of praise for the attorney have focused on his benevolence, not on his business. Certainly there will be cynics who’ll accuse Nugent of “using” these acts of philanthropy to enhance his own bottom line, but as Fletcher remarked about the most recent donation: “There were no cameras rolling, no one to impress, nothing that Ken would gain from this. He just did it to help other human beings in need.”

If you happen to run into any of those cynics, you might ask them what they’ve done lately to help someone else.