By Shaddi Abusaid
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Three Atlanta police officers can’t sue former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and other Fulton County officials after getting fired and charged over the violent arrests of two college students during the city’s turbulent Black Lives Matter protests five years ago.
The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the former mayor, former Atlanta police Chief Erika Shields, former District Attorney Paul Howard and an investigator from the Fulton DA’s office were immune from the officers’ claims that the firings and charges hurt their reputations and were pushed through unfairly as a way to gain political capital.
The officers, Mark Gardner, Lonnie Hood and Ivory Streeter, alleged they were fired in short order after they used a Taser on a driver and his passenger during a traffic stop amid the nighttime curfews put in place during a period of civil unrest after George Floyd’s murder by Minnesota police officers in May 2020 .
Among other things, the officers argued their firings — and the charges against them that followed —were unfairly jammed through by politicians looking to score points, and that they were defamed by Bottoms and Howard, who each went on podcasts to discuss the incident.
The officers were all eventually reinstated and the charges against them were dropped after a special investigation.
On Thursday, the officers lost their appeal when a three-judge panel affirmed a trial court’s dismissal of the lawsuit, finding that the defendants were entitled to immunity because they acted within the scope of their duties.
For example, when Bottoms and Shields went on TV the day they fired the officers and said the city wouldn’t tolerate the use of excessive force, they were acting within the expected duties of a mayor and police chief, who hold press conferences regularly, the court said.
The arrest that triggered the firings took place on May 30, 2020. Two college students, Messiah Young and Taniyah Pilgrim, were driving in downtown Atlanta during widespread unrest. Atlanta’s mayor had declared a state of emergency and established a citywide curfew after some protests turned violent, and the officers were tasked with enforcing that curfew when they encountered the students near Centennial Olympic Park Drive and Andrew Young International Boulevard.
Authorities said Young refused multiple requests to exit his vehicle and the situation escalated, resulting in Officers Streeter and Gardner using their Tasers on both he and his girlfriend. Body camera footage showed the officers smashing the car window and yanking the students from the vehicle. The next morning, Bottoms announced she was firing the officers over what she said was an excessive use of force.
Hood was suspended that day and fired 10 days later. Within 61 hours of the incident, Howard, the former DA, had charged six police officers with offenses ranging from violating their oath of office to aggravated assault.
Some applauded the quick decision to fire and arrest the officers, while others criticized the mayor, police chief and DA for what they considered to be politically motivated moves amid the nationwide protests against police brutality.
The Atlanta Civil Service Board eventually overturned each officer’s termination, finding the dismissals were made in violation of the city’s procedures and without due process. And a special counsel’s investigation concluded the officers acted “within the lawful scope of their authority and their actions were reasonable and in accordance with the law,” ending the criminal case against them.
Still, Atlanta City Council members last year approved a $2 million settlement for Young and Pilgrim.
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