HALL COUNTY, Ga. — A man is suing the Hall County Sheriff’s Department after he ended up unconscious and bleeding in a jail cell over a simple misunderstanding.
A lawyer gave Channel 2 Action News police body camera footage that shows deputies dropping the victim onto his head in a Hall County jail cell, knocking him out.
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Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes talked to Dewon Greer, who is now permanently scarred from the incident, which happened in September of last year.
A Georgia State Patrol trooper pulled Greer over for an issue with his tail light as he and his wife were headed to Lake Lanier to take their boat out.
To Greer’s surprise, his license was suspended.
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To Greer’s surprise, his license was suspended.
“I’m like, ‘Why is my license suspended?’, and they said, ‘child support,’” Greer said. “And I know that was already paid and I had my child support papers with me. I am not doing anything. I am not a threat.”
Greer said troopers wouldn’t even look at the paperwork even though he offered to get it, and took him to jail.
Things got much worse from there. Body camera video shows Hall County Sheriff’s deputies processing Greer forcing him to his knees and then drop him on the ground on his head.
“Oh, he’s bleeding! He’s bleeding,” one officer says on camera.
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“I thought you had his shoulder,” another officer says.
“I though you had his shoulder!” the first officer says.
“Knocked his (expletive) out good,” a female officer says.
Greer didn’t hear any of that, since he was unconscious at the time.
Fernandes reached out to get the deputies’ side of the story, but they said they can’t talk due to pending litigation in this case.
Photos Greer’s wife took when she picked him up show him with a bruised and swollen eye. Greer said he has a lazy eye now.
“It’s lower than my other eye. I still have a permanent scar,” Greer said. “It’s never gonna go away.”
He said that the blunt force trauma to his face forced him to have his dental implants removed and put back in.
“I’ve been going through a lot,” Greer said. “I’m at the doctor’s office daily for this situation and it’s hard to focus. I don’t even really like driving, and that’s what I have to do a lot of.”
The investigation determined that Greer’s driver’s license was suspended by mistake and that he was all paid up on his child support, so the arrest was a big misunderstanding.
But what happened to Greer at the Hall County jail is something he’ll never forget. He said he hopes his story will prevent this from happening to anyone else.
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