ATLANTA — The family of Johnny Hollman is celebrating their latest victory Monday night after the Atlanta City Council voted to urge the Atlanta Police Department to release the bodycam footage showing what led to his death.
“They killed my father and that was wrong he should be here with us. Not dead," Hollman's daughter Santeesh Crews-Williams said.
Crews-Williams said there is no doubt in her mind that the Atlanta police officers who responded to her father’s accident are responsible for his death. And after Monday’s Atlanta city council meeting, she said she is one step closer to proving it.
The council voted unanimously to urge the City of Atlanta Police Department to release the bodycam video.
"So often elected officials they can have their hearts hardened but not today, they heard, they saw the pain, the grief, the raw emotion that this family continues to have to go through," the family's attorney Mawuli Davis said.
Hollman died on Aug. 10. And, according to the Atlanta Police Department, the 62-year-old was driving along Cunningham Place in southwest Atlanta, when he got into an accident and he called the police.
In a release the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Hollman became "non-compliant" and the officer attempted to take him into custody. The two then got into a physical struggle and the officer deployed a taser. Once in custody, the GBI said the officer noticed Hollman was unresponsive and called EMS.
“To end up being slammed to the ground, punched, and tased to death is something that really makes this unthinkable and so I said this before, I think this is one of Atlanta’s most senseless police killings,” Davis added.
However, despite the council’s vote, Davis and Crews-Williams said the video being released is not a done deal. And, an Atlanta city attorney said the footage cannot be released because it is an open case with the GBI.
“I know we have a fight ahead but I’m going to keep fighting,” Crews-Williams said.
The measure still has to be signed by the mayor.
APD said in a statement Monday night that they had been directed by the investigating agencies in Hollman's death not to release the bodycam until the investigation is complete:
The body camera footage of the incident involving Mr. Hollman is part of a pending homicide investigation, of which the investigative bodies have directed the City not to release until the investigation is closed, as well as a pending administrative investigation. We all want justice, and in order for there to be a just outcome, there are policies and procedures in place to ensure a proper and thorough investigation as well as due process in the upcoming administrative hearing.
The Department will share the results of both the GBI and the APD investigations into the death of Mr. Hollman upon their conclusions.
Our thoughts are with the Hollman family.