Attorneys accuse DA of improper handling of police shooting case

MARIETTA — Attorneys representing the family of an Austell man shot and killed by a Cobb police officer in 2021 say the Cobb District Attorney’s office did not present a complete case to a grand jury that could have indicted the officer.

Devonte Brown, 28, was shot and killed after a car chase on Aug. 18, 2021, which occurred after Brown had been recklessly driving a stolen vehicle through Marietta, according to police. Officers eventually boxed him on Powder Springs Street near Sandtown Road.

In a news conference in front of the Cobb Superior Courthouse this week, attorneys with the Harry M. Daniels law firm, which represents the Brown family, said District Attorney Flynn Broady’s office presented their case to a grand jury in Dec. 2022 without having the full results of an investigation from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

“The case was presented to a grand jury and we believe the grand jury was not presented the Cobb County’s police policies or other evidence necessary for the grand jury to come back with the possibility of indicting Officer (Ian) Mcconnell,” said Crystal Carey, one of the Brown family’s attorneys.

Broady told the MDJ he rejected those claims, saying the attorneys were making false statements.

“Officer-involved shootings are not presented to the grand jury until all investigations are received,” Broady said. “The investigating agents provided testimony to the grand jury in all officer-involved shootings.”

Broady, who also said his office did not find any violation of a written policy and neither did the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, offered his condolences to Brown’s family for their loss.

“The circumstances for his loss are tragic,” Broady said. “In all officer-involved shootings our office follows a transparent procedure to ensure justice for all involved parties.”

Late last year, attorneys released body camera footage of the shooting, which shows an officer pointing a handgun at Brown and ordering him to put his hands up.

Instead, Brown can be seen reversing his vehicle, then accelerating into police vehicles that had boxed him in. An officer, identified in grand jury documents as Ian Mcconnell, then fired 12 shots into the vehicle.

“The video speaks for itself,” Carey said. “The video shows at no time was Mr. Brown a threat to any officers on the scene, or the public at large because he was being boxed in by officers and he was also being trapped in his vehicle.”

According to grand jury documents, Mcconnell was the officer that fired the shots that struck and killed Brown.

Nelly Miles, spokesperson with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said in a December 2023 MDJ article that the agency closed their investigation into the shooting on Sept. 11, 2023, 10 months after the grand jury declined to charge Mcconnell.

Bernarda Villalona, a New York-based attorney with Villalona Law, argued that Broady’s office had intended to tank the case.

“It is our call… that a special prosecutor be appointed in this case, and this case be presented to a grand jury in a fair and objective manner and with the proper policies and evidence presented to the grand jury to receive a fair and objective decision,” Villalona said.

Asked where the special prosecutor would come from, Villalona said in most instances, the attorney general would be responsible for appointing one.

Shawn Conroy, communications and outreach coordinator for the office of Attorney General Chris Carr, said instead their office no longer oversees that process. Instead, the process is overseen by the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of the state, whose executive director would be responsible for appointing a replacement district attorney for a case where a district attorney would be conflicted.