ATLANTA — The NAACP says they want the US Attorney to release all evidence they have relating to the shooting death of 21-year-old Jimmy Atchison to the Fulton County District Attorney's Office.
Atchison was shot to death by Atlanta Police Officer Sung Kim at the end of a foot chase in a southwest Atlanta apartment in January.
According to FBI spokesperson Kevin Rowson in January, agents were serving a warrant on Atchison for armed robbery. When agents attempted to make contact, he ran off, leading them on a chase through an apartment building.
Atchison was eventually located inside a closet in an apartment. According to family members, Atchison was not armed at that point and attempting to surrender to agents, when he was shot once in the face by Atlanta Police Officer Sung Kim, who was working with a federal task force at the time.
In late June, the family of Jimmy Atchison announced plans to file a lawsuit demanding $20 million from the city of Atlanta in connection with the shooting death of the 21-year-old.
According to the Atchison's family attorney, Tanya Miller, Jimmy Atchison was unarmed and attempting to surrender and comply with officers' demands when Sung shot him.
"Due to the egregious circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Atchison, and the substantial emotional and economic hardships caused by the conduct of the City of Atlanta Police Department on Mr. Atchison's two children, I have been authorized to make a demand for settlement in the amount of $20 million dollars at this time," Miller said in a letter to the city, which announced the family's intent to file suit. "Officer Sung Kim's illegal, unjustified and unconstitutional use of deadly force has robbed two children of the love and support of their father."
The FBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Atlanta Police Department and the Fulton County District Attorney's Office all said separately in June that they were investigating the incident. Miller said she was also investigating the case.
"We, frankly, don't think $20 million is enough," Miller said. "We believe it is a small price to pay for what they took from these kids."
In a news conference Friday morning, the Atlanta NAACP said they want to see the US Attorney's Office deliver all evidence they have to the Fulton County District Attorney's Office. They said they feel that the Fulton County D.A.'s office is missing evidence in order to make a decision in connection with the Atchison case.
In that news conference, attorney Tonya Miller said that it was her understanding that the FBI's investigation into the shooting was complete.
"We do believe we could file a lawsuit right now, but there's still a lot of wrangling over documents that, as I understand it, the district attorney is still trying to get from the US Attorney's Office," Miller said. "Our hope is that we can allow that fight to take place; allow law enforcement to complete their investigation."
US Attorney Byung J. "BJay" Pak released a statement Friday afternoon expressing his condolences to the Atchison family and responding to the content of the news conference.
Pak said his office was not and had not used politics in any measure within the bounds of their investigation of the Atchison shooting incident.
“I want to extend my sincerest condolences to Mr. Atchinson’s family who are grieving the loss of their loved one through this tragic event. When the family and my team met, I told them that we had asked the GBI to review the Atchison shooting. That investigation is still ongoing. We expect it to conclude in the near future. Additionally, GBI has indicated that the results of their review will be delivered to us and to the Fulton County District Attorney simultaneously," Pak said in the statement.
He said that his office represents all citizens of Georgia's northern district and that his office will follow the law and review the results of all investigations and remain as transparent as possible through their decision process.
"We represent all the citizens of the Northern District of Georgia and in doing so, my office will follow the law, review the results of investigations conducted, and strive to be as transparent as possible while preserving the integrity of the investigative process," Pak said. "Politics plays no role in the ultimate decisions made by my office, nor does it change the process. The officer involved in this case was a member of a federal task force, thus career federal prosecutors in my office will review the GBI investigation to determine if there was a violation of federal law prior to any state or local prosecutor’s office. Following our review, we plan to meet with the family once again to discuss the results of the investigation and our findings in this case."
Pak went on to respond directly to charges from Miller and the Atchison family which suggested that claimed that Pak and his office were lying and not being forthcoming with investigative results from the FBI in relation to the case.
"Recent comments made publicly by the Fulton County District Attorney and others allege that my office refuses to release to his office the FBI file on the Atchison shooting. That is completely false. Once the District Attorney made a proper request for access to information by following the law, we immediately engaged in discussions as to the process and what must be done to expeditiously provide access to the records," Pak said. "We offered the District Attorney the entire unredacted file contingent upon him signing an agreement to protect the personal identifiable information (“PII”) contained therein, which the federal government is required by federal law to do."
Pak continued, pointing out the common use of that type of agreement.
"Such an agreement is very commonly used to protect sensitive information from inadvertent disclosure. Importantly, the agreement would have allowed us to immediately turn over the documents he requested, while avoiding the time-consuming process to review and redact each and every portion containing PII," he said.
The US Attorney's Office says they do plan on forwarding the information to the D.A.'s office once the redaction process is complete.
"After his staff and my staff worked on the wording of the agreement for many days, the District Attorney then decided to sit on the agreement for days on end, and surprisingly, refused to sign the agreement and demanded that we redact each page. Redaction is a tedious process, and due to his decision, we are diligently redacting to protect personal identifying information of individuals contained in the requested files. The Fulton County District Attorney will get the information once that process is completed,” said Pak.
In a statement on Friday afternoon, the GBI says their investigation into the matter remains active and ongoing.
Since the January shooting, Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields has said that all Atlanta Police Officers must wear bodycams and that they must always be on. Shields said that this would apply to all officers -- including those participating in federal operations.
However, federal operations preclude the use of bodycams by those on federal taskforces.
Since the Atchison shooting, the Atlanta Police Department has pulled its officers from all federal task forces, including those of the FBI, DEA and US Marshal's, following Shields' directive regarding bodycams for Atlanta officers.
In May, Atchison's family said the move by Shields simply was not enough. Miller said that the family wants to see Officer Sung Kim fired and for the APD to take more substantive steps toward transparency and accountability.
Officer Kim has remained on desk duty since the shooting in January.