Atlanta City Council approves $2M settlement for students shocked with Tasers in car during 2020 protests
The Atlanta City Council has approved the payment of a settlement of $2 million to two college students who were shocked with Tasers and pulled from a car while they were stuck in downtown traffic caused by protests over George Floyd’s killing.
The Atlanta City Council has approved the payment of a settlement of $2 million to two college students who were shocked with Tasers and pulled from a car while they were stuck in downtown traffic caused by protests over George Floyd’s killing.
The City Council on Monday voted 13-1 to approve the payment to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Messiah Young and Taniyah Pilgrim. The lawsuit filed in June 2021 argued that police had no justification for pulling the two students from their car and shocking them.
Young and Pilgrim were students at historically Black colleges in Atlanta on May 30, 2020, when police confronted them. Video of the confrontation quickly circulated online adding to outrage in a city already roiled by protests.
Then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and then-Police Chief Erika Shields announced the next day that two officers had been fired and three others placed on desk duty. Then-Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard a few days later announced that arrest warrants had been obtained for six officers.
The dismissals of the two officers were overturned in February 2021 after the Atlanta Civil Service Board found the city did not follow its own personnel procedures. And the charges against the six officers were dropped in May 2022 by a special prosecutor assigned to the case.
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