ATLANTA — Jimmy Atchison's family and supporters said Monday that the indictment of a now-former Atlanta Police officer in the 2019 shooting death of the 21-year-old is "just the beginning."
A Fulton County grand jury delivered the indictment on involuntary manslaughter and violation of oath by a public officer charges against ex-officer Sung Kim on Friday. A separate indictment shows he is also facing felony murder, aggravated assault and violation of oath by public officer.
In 2019, Atchison was found hiding in a closet at the end of a foot chase through a building. A federal task force and Atlanta Police were attempting to serve a warrant for armed robbery and, upon finding Atchison, Kim shot him in the face.
In October 2019 the family said they met with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to hear the results of their investigation into the incident. They said at that time they were told Atchison was given two conflicting commands by officers in the room -- to come out with your hands up and not to move. They said he was following the command to come out when he was shot.
Atchison was unarmed, and a witness later came forward to dispute that any robbery had ever occurred.
Kim was never disciplined by APD - instead retiring from the force roughly more than nine months after the shooting. The case was never brought before a grand jury until Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis did so this year.
"Let's be clear, this shooting should never have happened," Gerald Griggs, the president of the Georgia NAACP and an attorney for the family at the beginning of the case, said Monday at a press conference. "And it should not have taken 3 1/2 years to get to this point. But because of the perseverance of Jimmy's family, particularly his aunt and his father and his late mother, his siblings, we are here."
Griggs, now-family attorney Tonya Miller and family members including father Jimmy Hill and his aunt Tammy Featherstone, thanked Willis for finally bringing the case to a grand jury.
"But we want more than just indictments, we want convictions," Griggs said.
Atchison's father said the day Jimmy was shot - Jan. 22, 2019 - was probably the darkest day of the family's lives.
"My son was unarmed and surrendered. I know he was scared. Every day I ask myself, what was his last words - what were last words, LJ," he said, using a nickname for his son. "It's been a struggle - suffering, pain. People just don't understand what police brutality does to the family, emotionally, mentally, physically, the wear and tear it places on us. It's just time for a change."
Griggs asserted Atlanta has a police brutality problem, and that this will be "a seminal case of how we respond" to it.
Another family attorney, Sam Starks, said the original internal APD investigation into Kim's actions was a "sham" and his aunt, Featherstone, said "the justice for Jimmy is the justice for a lot of Jimmys to come."
"Jimmy is a son of southwest Atlanta. Jimmy is the symbol upon which many people were marching and protesting from 2019 to today. Atlanta has a police brutality problem and Jimmy's name underscores that," Griggs said.
Fallout from Atchison's death resulted in Atlanta Police banning officers from participating in federal task forces, which do not allow the use of body cameras. The move was credited in part with an October 2020 decision by the U.S. Department of Justice to allow local police to wear body cameras in accordance with their own department policies while participating in joint task forces.
A federal civil rights lawsuit, filed in federal district court in 2020, alleged that the officers entered the apartment of Atchison's infant son and the child's mother without a search warrant, and then pursued Atchison to another apartment, threatening the tenants with arrest if they were not allowed to enter without a search warrant.
While Kim retired before any determination was made by APD about discipline, the lawsuit said other officers were cited for violations of department policy during the raid. Those included the failure to obtain a search warrant for the apartment where Atchison was ultimately shot and killed, the failure to file a required use-of-force report, the failure to engage SWAT in conjunction with the operation, and their alleged intimidation of residents of the apartment complex to obtain consent to search their apartments.
Atchison's mother passed away in the years after the shooting, with her sister Featherstone saying Monday that seeing the indictment eventually come down "would have meant everything to her."