Atlanta officers won’t face charges in 2020 confrontation with students amid George Floyd protests

A group of officers will not be prosecuted in connection with a 2020 confrontation involving two students over their alleged failure to obey a curfew implemented in the days after George Floyd’s death.

Taniyah Pilgrim and Messiah Young, who were students at the time at Spelman and Morehouse colleges, respectively, were approached by police in downtown Atlanta on May 30, 2020. They were out about 45 minutes after a 9 p.m. curfew.

Body camera video released in wake of the incident shows police attempting to detain another man, who is begging not to be arrested. Young, seated in the driver’s seat of his car, which is stopped in a long line of vehicles downtown, can be seen holding his phone up in an apparent bid to record the confrontation. The officers then approach Young, who pulls his door shut and urges them to release the man.

Police tell him to move along, and the vehicle travels forward a bit before becoming ensnarled in traffic. When it comes to a stop, police officers swarm the sedan and then rip both Pilgrim and Young from the vehicle, despite their protests.

In this photo taken from police body camera video released by the Atlanta Police Department, an officer points his handgun at Messiah Young while the college student is seated in his vehicle, in Atlanta, Saturday, May 30, 2020.

One officer deploys a stun gun on Pilgrim as she’s trying to exit the car while another screams at Young to put the car in park and open the window, which is later busted open by a cop with a baton.

As the glass shatters, an officer uses a stun gun on Young while shouting things like, “Get your hand out of your pockets,” and “He got a gun. He got a gun. He got a gun.”

Once Young is out of the car and on the ground, officers zip-tie his hands behind his back and lead him away. According to police reports, no gun was recovered from the scene.

While Pilgrim was never charged, Young was hit with a count of attempting to elude officers, though it was dismissed at the request of Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms, who later apologized.

“Use of excessive force is never acceptable,” she told reporters at the time.

Police officers and protesters clash near CNN Center, May 29, 2020, in Atlanta, in response to George Floyd's death. (Mike Stewart/)

Days after the confrontation, charges were filed against officers Lonnie Hood, Willie Sauls, Ivory Streeter, Mark Gardner, Armond Jones and Roland Claud.

Streeter and Gardner were fired from the force, but their dismissals were overturned in February 2021 after the Atlanta Civil Service Board found the city did not follow its own personnel procedures. The others were placed on desk duty.

Cherokee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Samir Patel on Monday announced that he would not further pursue the officers’ case and that the warrants filed against them have been dropped. He also emphasized that the video released does not adequately reflect what occurred between the pair of students and police.

“Not only was law enforcement acting within the scope of their legal authority in their actions to obtain compliance, their actions were also largely consistent with the Atlanta Police Department’s own use of force policy,” he said.

Patel added that he is “unable to find probable cause to prosecute the officers involved for a crime under Georgia law,” arguing that the officers’ use of force was “the direct result of Mr. Young and Ms. Pilgrim’s resistance to and noncompliance with the officers’ instructions.”

Lawyers L. Chris Stewart, Justin Miller and Mawuli Davis, who represent Pilgrim and Young, said their clients are “incredibly disappointed and disheartened” by Patel’s decision to dismiss the charges.

With News Wire Services