Two students who were forcibly pulled out of their car and had a stun gun used against them by Atlanta police during protests of George Floyd’s murder in 2020 are now suing the city, according to a lawsuit that was filed on Thursday.
Taniyah Pilgrim and Messiah Young, who both attend historically Black colleges in Atlanta, are accusing Atlanta police officers of assault and false arrest a little over a year after they were yanked out of their car and tased by six Atlanta police officers following a protest, ABC News reported.
“Accountability is what relieves pain and brings peace, and unfortunately there has been no accountability,” Young’s attorney Mawuli Mel Davis told the news outlet.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and nine officers are reportedly named in the suit.
Both Pilgrim and Young were on their way home on May 30 of last year during a curfew that was declared by Bottoms earlier that evening. According to the suit, when an officer asked Young to leave the area he was unable to move forward due to traffic.
Young was reportedly recording police confronting someone else on the side of the street when the officer reportedly retaliated and went after him and Pilgrim, ABC News reported.
Multiple police then approached the vehicle and one allegedly claimed that the couple had a gun, though they reportedly did not. Young was pulled from the car and slammed to the ground by an officer, the outlet noted.
“There was no gun. There was no weapon,” attorney L. Chris Stewart, who represents Pilgrim, said. “Yet he screamed multiple times from a distance, ‘He’s got a gun,’ which could have gotten these kids killed.”
Prosecutors have filed charges against six officers in the incident in June of last year. Four of the officers were charged with aggravated assault and another was charged with aggravated battery.
Earlier this year, two of the officers who were originally fired in connection to the incident were reinstated to the Atlanta police force.
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