The non-violent students were at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park after the city's 9 p.m. curfew went into effect.
Video of the sad incident shows an officer tell Young, who was driving the car, to keep moving but then the officer opens the door and tries to pull Young out of the car. Young manages to drive off but is stopped down the road by traffic before officers swarmed the car.
One officer opens the passenger-side door as his colleague attempts to break the driver-side window. The officer on the passenger side then uses his taser on Pilgrim, who could be heard screaming. Young can also be seen being tased before officers pulled him from the car. Young also said he was punched at least 10 times while he was being subdued on the pavement. The entire incident was caught on camera.WATCH: here’s my video of when two young people were tased, dragged out of their car in downtown Atlanta Saturday night. We’re working to find out why this happened and what led up to it @cbs46 https://t.co/JL4nMFCnls pic.twitter.com/USRby69Kp2— Jasmina Alston (@JasminaAlstonTV) May 31, 2020
At one point, officers can be heard yelling Young had a gun, but none was recovered. Pilgrim was held for several hours but never charged. Young was initially charged with fleeing the scene and driving with an expired license, but the mayor later ordered those charges to be dropped.
Lonnie Hood faces two counts of aggravated assault for using his Taser and one count of simple battery. Willie Sauls faces one count of aggravated assault for pointing his Taser and one count of criminal damage to property for damaging the car. Ivory Streeter also faces one count of aggravated assault for the user of a Taser and one count of pointing or aiming a gun. Mark Gardner has been charged with aggravated assault for using his Taser as well. Armond Jones has been charged with one count of aggravated battery and one count of pointing or aiming a gun. Roland Claud was the only officer to not be charged with assault or battery but faces one count of criminal damage to property for damaging the car.
The charges were announced Tuesday at a press conference by Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard, Streeter and Gardner were both fired Sunday.
"These are good guys. I know them as individuals. I've worked with the one for over 20 years. But they made that level of mistake that cannot be rolled back," Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields said at a Sunday news conference.Howard said Tuesday this is the third time ever that the DA's office has brought charges for police officers before they were indicted. He also noted that Young and Pilgrim were "extremely innocent."
"Unfortunately, we have been here many, many times before, where officers are arrested. And so we are prayerful, hopeful that this will go to its full conclusion. And these officers will not only be arrested, indicted and convicted. Because what they did to our children, and these are our community children, they have to be held accountable for," said Young's attorney, Mawuli Davis.Pilgrim on Tuesday said she is "so happy that they're being held accountable for their actions."
"I hope every police officer who thinks it's OK to drag someone, beat someone, do all this stuff because they're cops, I hope they're all going to be held accountable as well," she added.Young said he feels "a little safer now that these monsters are off of the streets and no longer able to terrorize anyone else from this point on."
He also stressed the need to make sure there "really is change moving forward in the culture of policing."
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