The Atlanta City Council approved a $2 million settlement on July 1 for two students who were pulled from their car and shocked with Tasers by police during the 2020 protests sparked by George Floyd’s death.
The lawsuit claimed that their car was stuck in traffic during curfew hours when several Atlanta police officers approached and demanded they exit the vehicle. The curfew had been imposed because of protests over Mr. Floyd’s death after his arrest by police officers.
According to the suit, the police pulled the students from their car, shocked them with Tasers, and arrested them. The incident was captured in a video that went viral on social media.
“I’m going to be reminded of this every single day of my life, so there just needs to be something done so that people don’t experience this ever again,” Mr. Young said at the time.
Then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and then-police Chief Erika Shields later announced that two officers had been fired and three others placed on desk duty.
Arrest warrants were issued for six officers, but the charges were dropped in May 2022 by a special prosecutor assigned to the case.
Cherokee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Samir Patel said the students violated curfew and that the officers’ use of force was a “direct result” of their alleged “resistance to and noncompliance with the officer’s instructions.”
“It is also clear from the evidence that the use of the Taser, and indeed any force used by the officers, ended immediately once Mr. Young and Ms. Pilgrim were subdued,” Mr. Patel said in May 2022.
“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.”
Mr. Patel also said the video circulated through media following the incident “was not an accurate portrayal of the entire encounter between Mr. Young, Ms. Pilgrim, and law enforcement.”
