ATLANTA — A local family says a former police officer is getting away with murder simply because he was an officer.
A Fulton County grand jury indicted then-Officer Sung Kim in the death of Jimmy Atchison. The 21-year-old was killed after investigators say he ran from officers of an FBI task force in January 2019.
A federal judge dropped the murder charges against Kim on Wednesday. Now, the district attorney has to decide whether to appeal the decision or not.
“This officer was able to get by through the loopholes of qualified immunity,” Atchison’s father, Jimmy Hill, said.
Despite an indictment, Hill told Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes that he knew that it didn’t guarantee a trial or a conviction.
“I told people we were just on the 30-yard line,” Hill said.
On Tuesday, six years after the killing, a federal judge dropped the murder charges against Kim, citing that he was acting in self-defense.
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“Mr. Atchison moved his hands in a threatening motion as if grasping and pointing a gun. I was concerned that there was a firearm in that split second,” Kim told the judge in federal court.
No other officers fired their guns that day while serving a warrant on Atchison, and all of the officers testified they never saw a gun.
Kim’s attorney said the DA’s office never should’ve charged Kim, and he said, “Kim acted in self-defense.”
The president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP, Gerald Griggs, hopes the DA’s office appeals the federal judge’s decision.
“It’s impossible to defend yourself against someone who is unarmed. He put his hands up, and you shot him in the face. That’s not self-defense,” Griggs said.
Griggs said he hopes the DA’s office appeals to case to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and believes there’s case law to support overturning the federal decision.
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