The family of a black Air Force veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder claim in court that a police officer used excessive force in trying to subdue him during an non-violent episode, causing his death.
Kayla Goggin | Courthouse News Service
ATLANTA (CN) — The family of a black Air Force veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder claim in court that a police officer used excessive force in trying to subdue him during an non-violent episode, causing his death.
Hill, 27, was naked and unarmed on the afternoon of March 9, 2015, when he shot and killed by Dekalb County police officer Robert Olsen.
Olsen, who is white, was indicted by a grand jury in January 2016 on two counts of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault.
He resigned from the DeKalb County Police Department immediately afterward, and pleaded not guilty to the charges on June 6, 2016.
In October 2016, DeKalb County Superior Court Judge J.P. Boulee denied a motion to drop the charges and Olsen continues to await trial.
In a wrongful death lawsuit filed in the federal court in Atlanta on March 9, Hill’s parents claim Olsen violated their son’s fourth and fourteenth constitutional rights, and that the officer’s supervisors “maintained policies, customs and practices which failed to adequately train and supervise DKPD police officers in the use of force, instead emphasizing military-style policing techniques.”
In sum, they say, “Olsen was trained to kill by DeKalb County.”
Continue to full article at Courthouse News Service.
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