Caught in the act: Atlanta police make quick arrest of suspected car burglar
The Brief
Javieon Mitchell, 22, was arrested and charged with obstruction and prowling after being spotted pulling on car door handles.
The second suspect involved in the incident remains at large.
Authorities are seeking anonymous tips from the public to help locate the second suspect, offering a reward of up to $5,000.
ATLANTA - A man was arrested after officers monitoring surveillance cameras spotted two suspects pulling on car door handles.
It happened on April 14 near Peachtree Center Avenue NE and John Portman Boulevard NE.
What we know
According to the Atlanta Police Department, officers part of the Video Integration Center Unit observed the activity and relayed the man's location and description to patrol officers. Responding officers quickly located and detained one of the individuals.
Javieon Mitchell, 22, was arrested and charged with obstruction and prowling.
What we don't know
The second suspect remains at large.
What you can do
Authorities are asking anyone with information about the second suspect to submit tips anonymously to the Crime Stoppers Atlanta tip line at 404-577-8477, online at StopCrimeAtl.org, or by texting CSGA and the tip to 738477. Tipsters do not have to provide their name or any identifying information to be eligible for a reward of up to $5,000.
The Source
The Atlanta Police Department provided the video and details for this article.
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5 days ago
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State NAACP Calls for Appeal in Fatal Atlanta Police Shooting After Judge Drops Charges
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Other officers who were in the room told investigators that Atchison raised one or both hands quickly in the seconds before Kim fired his weapon. Last month, Kim — who was charged with murder, aggravated assault, involuntary manslaughter, and violation of oath — testified during an evidentiary hearing that he thought Atchison had a firearm and was going to shoot him. In his order dismissing the charges, U.S. District Judge Michael L. Brown wrote that the shooting was 'textbook self-defense.' In the months following his son's death, Hill's family and Atlanta's activist community led dozens of protests that led to the Atlanta Police Department pulling out of federal task forces entirely in 2019 because, at the time, they banned officers from wearing body cameras. The following year, the Department of Justice changed its policy to allow local and state law enforcement to wear body cameras while serving on a federal task force. Victories like APD's withdrawal from federal task forces have bolstered Hill's willingness to continue to fight for justice for his son. Read More: Judge to Decide Whether to Move Forward With Trial in Fatal Police Shooting of Jimmy Atchison 'People respond to pressure,' Hill said. 'I refuse to sit back, I refuse to be tired.' Next on his agenda is to have the Fulton County District Attorney's office appeal the judge's decision up to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Assisting Hill in this quest is Gerald Griggs, a local attorney and president of the Georgia NAACP. Griggs told Capital B Atlanta that he wrote a letter to the district attorney's office Wednesday morning to stress the importance of appealing this case because Atchison was unarmed at the time of the shooting. 'We're not gonna remain silent, we're just going to keep going.' Jimmy Hill, father of Jimmy Atchison 'We believe that [this] sets a dangerous precedent in the 11th Circuit, which covers most of the Southern states, that an officer can shoot an unarmed individual who's been given several conflicting commands and in the face,' Griggs said. A spokesperson for District Attorney Fani Willis' office told Capital B Atlanta in a statement Wednesday afternoon that they are reviewing the decision and considering next steps. The office has 30 days to notify the court of appeals; after which, there is then time allotted for it to file documents with the court explaining why it is appealing and what specifically it disagrees with in the judge's order. According to Griggs, the 11th Circuit can take anywhere from six months to several years to decide whether to accept an appeal. If it agrees to take the case, it will order a briefing and the case will be assigned to either a single judge or a three-judge panel. Griggs said he isn't certain what the outcome will be because he's seen the 11th Circuit deny appeals when the victim was armed, but hasn't seen many where they've upheld the lower court's decision when the victim was unarmed. 'It's hard to say because it is one of the more conservative circuits in the United States, but I think based on these facts there needs to be an appeal, otherwise this sets a very dangerous precedent for the South and for the nation,' Griggs continued. Regardless, Hill plans to continue to fight until he gets justice for his son. On Mother's Day weekend, Hill protested in honor of his son's late mother, Cynthia Atchison, outside the megachurch of a local pastor who told Black parents to stop blaming white cops for killing their children. Hill said he believes Cynthia's death in 2022 was due to a broken heart. Read More: Viral Sermon Blaming Black Parents for Police Killings Sparks Mother's Day Protest 'I'll get out there and fight in the rain, in the heat, whatever,' Hill said. 'I get out there and fight on days I didn't want to fight. But I knew it had to be done because that's my son and I love him. So we're not gonna remain silent, we're just going to keep going.' The post State NAACP Calls for Appeal in Fatal Atlanta Police Shooting After Judge Drops Charges appeared first on Capital B News - Atlanta.
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5 days ago
Judge dismisses murder charges against officer in shooting of unarmed man in closet
ATLANTA -- A federal judge has thrown out murder charges against a former Atlanta police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man hiding in a closet. U.S. District Judge Michael Brown ruled Tuesday that Sung Kim, a 26-year veteran of the Atlanta police department, acted in self defense and shouldn't face charges in the 2019 killing of 21-year-old Jimmy Atchison. 'The evidence for self-defense is so overwhelming it is hard to understand how Georgia could have brought these charges in the first place, much less continued with them over the two-and-a-half years since," Brown wrote in his ruling. 'Defendant's shooting of Mr. Atchison was textbook self-defense.' Kim was indicted in state court in 2022, but moved his case to federal court because he was assigned to an FBI fugitive task force when the shooting happened and thus was a federal officer. Atlanta activists have cited Atchison's death as an example of unjustified police violence against Black people. His name was often chanted by Atlanta protesters during Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. The shooting also sparked policy changes. The Atlanta Police Department withdrew its officers from federal task forces because task force members weren't allowed to wear body cameras, meaning there is no video of Atchison's shooting. Officers returned after federal agencies began allowing local task force officers to wear cameras. Atchison was killed on Jan. 22, 2019, after Kim and other task force members tried to arrest him on charges that he stole a woman's purse and cellphone in an armed robbery. Kim retired from the Atlanta Police Department several months later. A Fulton County grand jury indicted Kim on charges that included felony murder and involuntary manslaughter. Officers forced their way into an apartment, prompting Atchison to jump out of a window, run through a second building and hide beneath a mound of clothes in a closet in another apartment. In his ruling, Brown rejected claims by a state witness that officers violated generally accepted police practices by entering the other apartment and the bedroom where Atchison was hiding. Testimony showed Kim shot Atchison in the face after Kim either yelled for Atchison to not move or show his hands. Atchison suddenly moved his hands from under the clothes. Family members say Atchison was raising his hands to surrender when Kim shot him in the face. Kim and other officers testified that they believed Atchison's move was threatening, as if he had a gun. Brown ruled that fear was reasonable and justified a shooting in self-defense. 'Nothing required defendant to hold off shooting until he literally saw a gun in Mr. Atchison's hand,' the judge wrote. 'He had a reasonable belief Mr. Atchison was armed and was going to shoot him. That is all that matters.' Nabika Atchison, Jimmy Atchison's sister, said in a statement that relatives are 'deeply disappointed' by Brown's decision, 'but with today's climate surrounding police brutality, I can't say we are surprised.' Tanya Miller, a Democratic state House member and lawyer representing the Atchison family, said the decision is a 'painful subversion of justice.' 'This decision underscores the troubling gap in accountability when local officers operate on federal task forces — a no-man's land where they can violate their own department's policies, the Constitution, take a young life, and still avoid standing trial,' Miller wrote in a text message. Don Samuel, a lawyer for Kim, said via email that the ruling was correct. 'It is hard to celebrate when a young man died," Samuel wrote, "but there is no doubt that the decision of the Fulton County DA's office to compound the tragedy by prosecuting Sung Kim was an inexcusable abuse of prosecutorial discretion." The Georgia state conference of the NAACP called on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to appeal the ruling, saying it unjustly shields officers from accountability when they kill unarmed people. 'This ruling is not just a blow to the Atchison family's pursuit of justice — it's a threat to civil rights and public safety across the nation,' said Gerald Griggs, president of the Georgia NAACP.
