CHARGES TOSSED FOR OFFICERS

A district attorney said Monday that he would not prosecute Atlanta police officers involved in a May 2020 confrontation with two college students who were stunned with Tasers and pulled from a vehicle while they were stuck in traffic caused by protests over George Floyd’s death.

Messiah Young and Taniyah Pilgrim, two students at historically Black colleges in Atlanta, were confronted by police in downtown Atlanta on May 30, 2020. Within days, thenFulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced arrest warrants had been obtained for six officers.

“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,” Cherokee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Samir Patel said in a statement Monday.

Patel dismissed the warrants filed against the officers involved: Ivory Streeter, Mark Gardner, Lonnie Hood, Roland Claud, Willie Sauls and Armon Jones.

He said he is “unable to find probable cause to prosecute the officers involved for a crime under Georgia law.”

Lance LoRusso, a lawyer representing Streeter and Gardner, said his clients “have been vindicated” and look forward to returning to full duty.

“While many of their critics and detractors are gone, Investigators Gardner and Streeter, like so many law enforcement officers, remain willing to risk their lives to protect strangers in fulfillment of their oaths of office,” LoRusso said in an emailed statement.

Streeter and Gardner were the officers who were fired. Their dismissals were overturned in February 2021 after the Atlanta Civil Service Board found that the city did not follow its own personnel procedures.