Ex-Atlanta cop gets 5 years for beating Walmart customer over 'stolen' tomato

[7962]

Source: Atlanta Journal

A former Atlanta police officer was sentenced to five years in prison Monday for beating a Walmart customer he wrongfully accused of stealing a tomato and trying to cover it up, Channel 2 Action News reported.

Trevor King, 49, of Stockbridge, was convicted in December on federal charges of unreasonable force and falsifying a police report. According to prosecutors, King was in uniform and working off-duty at the Walmart on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive when he saw Tyrone Carnegay weigh a tomato and walk toward the store’s exit.

King stopped the victim near the door and hit the victim with his baton seven times, breaking two bones in the victim’s right leg.

As Carnegay lay on the floor bleeding from his injuries, prosecutors said King searched him and found a receipt for the tomato in Carnegay’s bag.

Read more: https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/atlanta-cop-gets-years-for-beating-walmart-customer-over-stolen-tomato/jSnD2Crf5H94c9WjeU5p9I/

---

Cop's atty:“heartbreaking for Mr. King, for his family. He’s a father.” Really???

[rurallib]

1. do you know if Mr. Carnegy was able to get any restitution

or compensation for his injuries and false imprisonment?

Looks to me like Atlanta (or really the cop) should have paid some compensation.

[7962]

3. I would imagine theres a lawsuit somewhere, but haven't heard of one yet.

Either against the city or Wal Mart. Or both. He WAS off duty, so I dont know if the city could be found liable.

[dalton99a]

5. There is a lawsuit:

http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article210625379.html

Carnegay filed a civil lawsuit against King, a Walmart employee and the retailer in 2016, saying the reaction was unjustified and that he had no time to react.

"Before I could do anything, he started beating me," Carnegay told WXIA. "He's giving a verbal command, but as he's giving the verbal command, he's beating the mess out of me."

Carnegay's lawyer told WSB-TV the incident could have been avoided if someone had just asked him to produce a receipt.

"“Somebody could have come up to him and said, ‘Excuse me sir, do you have (a) receipt for that tomato?’ and he would've shown him the receipt,” his attorney Craig Jones told the station. “The officer went into Robocop mode and beat the crap out of him.”

[7962]

9. Good!! Thank you for posting that.

[BigOleDummy]

2. Agreed

He has to be held accountable financially as well as legally.

[Blue_Tires]

4. Broken bones, illegal search, falsified report

Jesus...

Is it too much to ask that the AJC headline indicate that the tomato was *NOT* fucking stolen?

Can we go back to the old days of Wal-Mart? The days when they didn't give much of a shit of what you walked out with as long as it wasn't electronics? The days when a 2% loss due to theft was laughed off as the cost of doing business??

It's odd because 20 years ago I knew of a woman and her daughter working at an Atlanta-area Wal-Mart who over a matter of months embezzled over $50,000 in goods... Wal-Mart didn't even press charges on the condition that they returned the stuff and wrote out a check to make good on the stuff they already fenced... Hell, IIRC I don't even think they lost their jobs, but they DID get transferred from their department (returns desk, which is how they ran the scam)

[alphafemale]

6. Even if the tomato was stolen. Which it was not.

How is a theft of produce, probably less than a dollar a valid reason to cripple someone?

Yeah I worked at a chain called Winn-Dixie.

We were taught to let it be for the most part.

The cameras did the work.

This one woman was walking very weird and a tier cake fell out from between her legs.

Without missing a beat she said...

"I came in with that."

[Jedi Guy]

10. Oh wow, Winn-Dixie...

I worked there bagging groceries for a couple of years in high school. Now that was a surreal experience. Every day was basically a non-stop parade of people who were "People of Walmart" rejects, if one can imagine that. I was so glad to ditch that job when I left for university.

[forgotmylogin]

13. Oh man...

I'm trying to think of the reasons to weigh a tomato you've already bought...maybe he was making a recipe that specifically called for 8oz of diced tomato and was second guessing and thought he'd use the in-store scale?

I know I'm making this up...it's such an odd action and doesn't justify what this cop did.

I suppose possibly stopping him and asking what happened was too much?

Yeah. It's a fucking tomato, not a television set.

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Checking Against The Receipt?

Maybe he weighed it earlier, and was disputing what the register scale said it weighed, since he was paying by the pound?

Just a surmise.

[Calista241]

14. Lol, i love that Winn Dixie story.

I was in line to return something at Costco a few weeks ago, and the woman in front of me was returning a pair of shoes that she said she bought last week and had lost the receipt. However, I could see that the shoes were several years old and had holes worn through the soles. The employee barely even looked at the shoes and returned the woman her money.

[Downtown Hound]

7. Anyone want to bet that if he hadn't falsified the report

and tried to cover it up, he'd still be a cop today? Anybody want to take that bet?

[Aristus]

8. Aaron Sorkin expressed it best when he wrote: "The only way to get them to stop doing that

is to charge them so much money, they don't want to go on living..."

[Jedi Guy]

11. Good.

May he rot in his administrative segregation cell, since they won't risk putting him in general population. Enjoy five years in a tiny cell for 23.5 hours a day.

[Liberalagogo]

12. Questions:

Why is this guy an EX-cop?

How does one "work and be off-duty" at the same time?

How do you miss the customer paying fro the item if you're following them?

And that shitty atty's comment. There's someone that needs beating with a baton.

[Calista241]

15. It was a side job.

Cops, by virtue of being cops, can get off duty jobs at very high pay rates because of their qualifications. Grocery stores, movie theaters, malls, etc, all pay cops very high hourly rates to stand around and "give people a feeling of safety" simply with their presence.

Cops are obligated to enforce the law while off duty, and especially while in uniform.

I know a few police officers that make as much as or more than their salary by working these off duty gigs.

[7962]

17. I think he's "ex" because of this incident. He was wearing his uniform

I doubt you're allowed to keep & wear one if you leave the force. Falsifying a report also points to him still being employed at the time

And your point about the atty is just why I added that!

[Blue_Tires]

22. cops are in high demand and can make good $$$ doing

"off-duty" security...

Is there a trendy popular bar or dance club in your city? I promise you the dudes at the door every Friday/Saturday night are cops working off the clock.

[Hortensis]

16. Despicable. The whole 5 years should be for the

beating alone, plus a similar period for falsifying his report, then double it all for actually filing false charges, which should carry penalties severe enough to make all authorities shudder.

Well, at least this one's gone righteously to prison.

[Nitram]

19. Makes me sick. Too many cops have a God complex they think gives them the right to judge

who is guilty and punish them violently on the spot, or worse, take their life. The federal government needs to pass laws requiring intensive training for all police officers in the de-escalation of potentially violent situations, and limits on the use of force. There should also be better screening of recruits, and procedures to weed out authoritarian, bigoted, or otherwise dangerous individuals in the police force. We need more courage on the police force, more knowledge of the law, and an end to the constant violation of Americans' civil rights.

[skypilot]

20. heartbreaking for Mr. King, for his family. He's a father.

I would not be surprised to find out that his kids are glad to be rid of him for a while. Watching this video I can't help but think that it's very likely that he beats his kids like this, only with a belt or a "switch" instead a baton.

[7962]

21. Never thought of that. good point.

Although I was never "beaten", I was spanked when I was a kid. And I'd say theres a big difference although some would disagree. I didn't want to get spanked again, so I quit being an ass.
At least the type of ass that deserved a spanking.....

One of my friends DID get beatings and it was terrible. He'd get them for nothing. Dad was a drunk. Back then, there wasnt any talk about telling the county. I dont even know if they would've done anything back then. But his mom got up enough cash to leave and he was immediately a different person.

[skypilot]

23. When I was growing up...

...I'd see parents hit their kids like this with belts and switches and they'd seem to make a point of going for the bare legs if the kid was wearing shorts. This video reminded me very much of that even though the victim was wearing long pants. It just looks very much like the way an abusive, out of control parent hits a child.