“As you can see, right now they’re hosting individual sessions, group sessions,” Mya Cullins said. “Those are individuals with a past history of addiction or mental health and they come in here every week and they meet with a licensed clinician.”
According to authorities, Cullins was acting unruly at the restaurant and later allegedly shot a security guard who was trying to take him outside before Atlanta police arrived and opened fire, killing the 22-year-old.
The Cullins family and other advocates dispute that account.
Georgia and Atlanta chapter NAACP President Gerald Griggs is one of a select few who have been allowed to watch the body camera footage in the nearly two years since Cullins’ death.
“Many times in these cases there’s an initial narrative that’s put out there from the perspective of law enforcement, but when you actually delve deep into the facts of the case, it is a different story,” Griggs said.
Based on the tape, Griggs said Cullins put his hands up in the air when he saw the police but that he was shot two separate times while he was on the ground. It’s unclear who fired first.
Griggs said Cullins suffered from at least 10 gunshot wounds.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said it completed its review of the case in June of last year.
WABE has filed an open records request for the footage, but it is in the hands of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.
Statewide, the last time there were fewer than a hundred police shootings in a year was in 2020, when 96 were reported to the GBI.
But in 2022, Cullins was one of a record 112 police shootings. An analysis by WABE found approximately 48% of those were fatal.
The GBI said the number of police shootings slightly fell to 103 last year, but the percentage of those who died stayed the same.
This is a list of officer-involved shootings that occurred in Georgia in 2023, according to the Georgia Bureau of…
Read the full article here
