Lawsuit: Officers used excessive force, attempted cover-up
Source: Associated Press
Kate Brumback, Associated Press
Updated 4:02 pm, Wednesday, January 10, 2018
ATLANTA (AP) — Law enforcement officers used excessive force when they shot a schizophrenic Georgia man at least 59 times in August 2016 and then tried to cover up their actions by tampering with evidence, lawyers for his mother assert in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Officers serving an arrest warrant broke down the front door of an apartment in East Point and "without cause or provocation" began "spraying" the inside of an East Point apartment with bullets, killing 26-year-old Jamarion Rashad Robinson, lawyers for his mother, Monteria Najuda Robinson, wrote in the lawsuit. The officers were aware that Jamarion Robinson had been diagnosed with schizophrenia but failed to investigate his mental health status before trying to arrest him and weren't properly trained to arrest people with psychiatric conditions, the lawsuit says.
Law enforcement agencies whose officers were named in the lawsuit either declined to comment or didn't respond Wednesday to emails seeking comment.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release the day after the shooting that gunfire erupted when members of a U.S. Marshals Service task force made contact with Robinson inside the apartment. Witnesses and videos show that officers gave numerous verbal commands for Robinson to put down a weapon, the GBI said.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Lawsuit-Officers-used-excessive-force-attempted-12487858.php
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