An Atlanta police officer seen on a video posted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution body slamming a woman on the first night of protests in Atlanta has been placed on administrative assignment, police said.
The woman, identified as Amber Jackson, was near Lenox Square mall in the Buckhead area of Atlanta on May 29.
An investigation into the actions of the officer has been opened by the department’s Office of Professional Standards to determine if he violated any department policies or procedures, said police spokesman Carlos Campos in a statement. Police have released body-camera video from the officer.
Police say the incident took place when the officer stopped a car where a female passenger was attempting to remove a barricade blocking the road. Jackson refused the officer’s orders to exit the vehicle, police said in a statement.
When the officer attempted to get her out of the car, the two struggled and during her effort to resist arrest, the officer had to force her to the ground to get her in handcuffs, police said.
The bodycam video shows the officer approach Jackson and yell at her to get out of the car. It appears to show the officer attempting to open the door twice and the passenger pulling back twice. When Jackson eventually exits the vehicle a struggle ensues between the two and it appears she hits some kind of object before a scream is heard in the distance and the camera view becomes obscured. Jackson is then seen lying on the ground having her hands cuffed behind her back.
Jackson suffered a broken clavicle and cannot work as a dental hygienist because of the injury, her lawyer Mawuli Davis said in a news release.
The video, taken on May 29by the AJC, shows a woman pull away from an officer who then grabs her from behind and slams her to the ground. The camera shifts so the impact occurs just out of frame. A woman is heard screaming in the background.
The video then cuts to show the officer lifting the woman, now handcuffed, by her arm.
May 29 was the first night of protests in the Atlanta area sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. That night, several businesses were looted. There were no curfews in place at that time.
At a news conference Friday, Davis said Jackson received a citation for disorderly conduct.
CNN cannot verify what preceded the incident seen in the video.
Davis said in an interview Thursday that Jackson and the people she was with were leaving the area near Lenox Square shopping mall in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. They had gone there intending to protest, Davis said, but “they saw that it didn’t look like it was going to be a protest but something fishy,” so they tried to leave.
The exits were blocked, so Jackson got out of the vehicle to move a barricade, Davis said. Jackson got back into the car before the police officer pulled her out, he said.
Jackson echoed that account Friday, adding, “I have never been arrested, anything of that matter.”
“Today I stand in pain for all of the victims of police brutality,” Jackson said.
Her fiancé, Andre Williams, the grandson of the civil rights leader Hosea Williams, said they had gone to Lenox to participate in a peaceful demonstration.
“We were attempting to continue the legacy that my grandfather started,” Williams said, before people began engaging “in actions that we were not a part of, and that I might not have agreed to.”
“They took my fiancé and they pinned me against a car and they slammed her and then they put us in the car and they made us sit. They made her sit with a broken shoulder in handcuffs,” Williams said.
Georgia NAACP President James Woodall called for the resignation of Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields over the incident.
“That level of police brutality and excessive use of force continues to terrorize our people,” Woodall said. “And gratefully we have Ms. Jackson here today, but unfortunately, for way too many people that ends up in their deaths.”
Davis said he and his client are calling for the officer to be fired and prosecuted.
“I just think it’s important for people to understand the ramifications of this kind of violence against people, especially when they have not violated the law,” he told CNN Thursday. “Even if you violate the law there’s a way to arrest someone without injury.”
“That was absolutely excessive,” Davis added. “She weighs about 130 pounds. To lift her up and body slam her like that is just, I mean, it was as if she had just robbed a bank or something. It makes no sense.”
Atlanta Mayor on ‘Defund the Police’ movement
Meanwhile, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told CNN’s Anderson Cooper police reform is critical, but she does not agree with the “Defund the Police” movement. Instead, she is calling for some police funding to be redirected to other community programs.
“We need police on our streets. We need them in our communities, and we all call upon them at one time or another,” she said.
Bottoms added that she has already started the process of reconsidering the Atlanta Police Department’s use of force policies. Two Atlanta officers have been fired for using excessive force during a protest last Saturday night.
Still, the mayor says she believes the police department needs more resources, not fewer.
“When my 18-year-old nephew was murdered, we called the Atlanta Police Department,” Bottoms said. “They solved the murder.”
