ATLANTA — Two college students are reacting after the Atlanta City Council voted to give them $2 million.
In 2020, when thousands of people were protesting the murder of George Floyd, officers pulled the two students out of their car, Tased and detained them.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes learned why the students are struggling to move forward.
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“It’s a memory I’ve been wanting to forget and I’m sure Messiah has too. But unfortunately, it is etched into our memory,” Spelman student Taniyah Pilgrim said.
Pilgrim and her friend Messiah Young, who attended Morehouse will never forget what happened to them in May of 2020.
They went out for a bite to eat and got caught in the traffic of a protest for George Floyd, that they were not part of.
But because then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had just put Atlanta on a 9 p.m. curfew, these officers stopped the two college students and warned them to move their car 11 times.
When they did not comply, the students were yanked out of the car, Tased and detained.
“What most of you don’t know is later that night, an officer just opened the back of the van, took off her handcuffs and pushed her away,” attorney Chris Stewart said.
They were never charged with a crime.
Then Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard decided the officers did not use excessive force. The officers never faced charges.
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The students’ attorney, Harold Spence, says that the decision was political.
“Because of who was chosen to look into whether these officers should be prosecuted, the outcome was baked in from the outset,” Spence said.
That’s when the legal team filed a civil suit, which forced all 10 officers involved and former Police Chief Erika Shields, to sit down for depositions that lasted seven hours each.
Spence said in her deposition that all the officers, including the former chief, said the students did nothing wrong that night.
Four years later, the Atlanta City Council voted 13 to 1 to give the students $1 million each.
“The city wouldn’t just pay $2 million for no reason,” Stewart said.
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