A former Atlanta police officer was sentenced to five years in prison Monday for beating a Walmart customer he wrongfully accused of stealing a tomato and trying to cover it up, Channel 2 Action News reported.
Trevor King, 49, of Stockbridge, was convicted in December on federal charges of unreasonable force and falsifying a police report.
According to prosecutors, King was in uniform and working off-duty at the Walmart on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive when he saw Tyrone Carnegay weigh a tomato and walk toward the store’s exit.
King stopped the victim near the door and hit the victim with his baton seven times, breaking two bones in the victim’s right leg.
As Carnegay lay on the floor bleeding from his injuries, prosecutors said King searched him and found a receipt for the tomato in Carnegay’s bag.
The receipt showed he paid for the tomato only minutes before King’s attack.
“King then wrote a false report to cover up his unjustified assault,” prosecutors said. “Additionally, King charged the victim with obstructing a shoplifting investigation and with assaulting a police officer.”
King was indicted in December 2016 and retired in January 2017.
His attorney, Odis Williams, said Monday’s sentence was “heartbreaking for Mr. King, for his family. He’s a father.”
Following emergency surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital in 2014, Carnegay was taken to the Fulton County Jail on King’s bogus charges. Prosecutors ultimately dismissed them.
“He got what he deserved,” Carnegay said Monday after the sentencing. “He did me wrong.”