U.S. faces suit over student shot 59 times
Fulton County Dist. Atty. Paul Howard said Friday that federal authorities have blocked his prosecutors from interviewing the officers who killed Jamarion Robinson, 26.
Howard said the federal agency has also stymied his investigation of the 2016 killing by refusing to turn over any documents, despite numerous requests during the last two years under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
“We’ve never done anything like this,” he said of the lawsuit. “Our hope was that the federal authorities would cooperate and provide this office and this family with all the information about this incident. I cannot understand why they have not done it.”
Robinson’s mother, Monteria Robinson, accompanied Howard when he announced the lawsuit. “My son deserves the truth,” she said.
Atlanta criminal defense lawyer Page Pate, who isn’t involved in the case but has handled others involving the federal government, said the standoff between local and federal law enforcers “is extraordinarily unusual.”
“They stonewall plaintiffs all the time, but it is unusual for them to stonewall a district attorney who is investigating a possible crime.... They generally cooperate when it comes to investigating serious crimes,” Pate said.
Robinson died in a hail of gunfire after a fugitive task force armed with weapons that included submachine guns broke down a door in the Atlanta suburb of East Point in August 2016 and fired more than 90 rounds “into or inside” the apartment, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that the Justice Department has “steadfastly blocked” Howard’s office from investigating and that federal officials failed to return many calls from his office.
Witnesses and videos have indicated that officers gave numerous commands for Robinson to put down a weapon, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the day after the shooting. A handgun found at the scene was “believed to be associated with Robinson,” the bureau said at the time.
The lawsuit also alleges that although officers claimed Robinson fired at them three times with a gun found later in his apartment, “when the firearm was recovered, it was damaged and inoperable.”
East Point police have said Robinson was suspected of shooting at Atlanta officers that summer, and task force members had gone to the apartment to arrest him.
Robinson, who studied biology, had played football at Clark Atlanta University and was transferring to Tuskegee University in Alabama shortly before he was killed. He’d recently been found to have schizophrenia, the lawsuit states. Except for a traffic violation, he had no criminal convictions, according to the suit.
