Six Atlanta officers have been charged with using “excessive force” against two college students on Sunday, May, 31, according to CNN. Fulton County District Attorney, Paul Howard made the announcement Tuesday, June 2.
A day earlier, Atlanta’s Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced that two of the officers were fired for the malicious act that saw two students from historically Black colleges (Morehouse and Spelman) yanked and tased in a disturbing video that has now gone viral.
“As we watch the video today, it became abundantly clear immediately with the young woman that this force was excessive,” Bottoms said. “It also became abundantly clear that the officer who tased the young man needed to be terminated as well.”
Spelman student, Taniyah Pilgrim, 20, was identified as the passenger in the car driven by Messiah Young, a student at Morehouse College. While returning home from protests Young was yanked from the car while Pilgrim was tased, then pulled from the car and forced to the pavement.
Pilgrim described the incident as “the worst experience of my life.”
The officers were filmed while the entire incident unfolded. Young was cited at the scene, but Bottoms ordered the charges to be dropped. Pilgrim was not charged.
Arrest warrants have been issued for all of the officers involved including Lonnie Hood, Willie Sauls, Ivory Streeter, Mark Gardner Armond Jones and Roland Claud. Howard stated that the charges against the officers as aggravated assault of Young, aggravated assault of Pilgrim, simple battery and criminal damage to property.
Streeter and Gardner are the two officers who were fired in the aftermath of the incident.
One of them claimed in a police report, that he used the taser because he was unsure if there was a weapon in the car.
“I heard officers say gun two-three times,” the officer wrote, according to CNN. “Not being able to see the hands of the passenger and being that she was in my immediate sight I deployed my city-issued taser to defuse the situation.”
Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields was shocked by the footage. “This video was really shocking to watch in how we were manhandling a couple of young people in their car,” she said.
A $10,000 signature bond has been set for all six officers and they have until the end of the day, June, 5, to turn themselves in.
