Busted Poker Game Descends Into Chaos

A surgeon present at a poker game which was raided by Chattanooga Police on April 13th has been describing the horror of the incident in front of Court Judge Ron Durby.
Apparently, the high stakes poker game was under four months of surveillance by police and on the night in question around 12 officers raided the office of ATC Healthcare at 1618 Gunbarrel Road. Inside 17 people were suspected of gambling, including Dr. Neil Spitalny, 61, who said he didn’t hear the officers announce police when entering the premises and said he thought they were being robbed. As he explained in front of the judge:
“It sounded like the front of the building had collapsed..and [I feared] that I would be mowed down with a machine gun.”
During the commotion, several men tried to escape out the back door but either ran back inside the building or hit the ground when they saw more officers outside. According to Police Chief Bobby Dodd, the gambling situation “would probably have been a citation” but, bizarrely, Clifford Billups, who provided food for the poker game, apparently tried to make a break for it outside holding two weapons before being shot in the torso by Chattanooga Police Officer John Patterson. As the officer explains:
“I was certainly in fear for my life and I fired my gun to keep that from happening. The only way I can describe it is I was looking down the barrel of a cannon and was about to get my head blown off.”
Clifford Billups’s lawyer is claiming his client, too, thought it was a robbery but the judge seemed less convinced and Billups is currently facing a number of charges, including attempted first-degree murder and unlawful possession of a weapon.
Following the raid, police officers seized $26,393 in cash, 34 pills, 3.3 grams of marijuana, as well as various gambling paraphernalia.