12 Georgia Officers Face Justice for Five Separate Instances of Police Brutality Against Black and Hispanic Men

     On April 12th, 2017, Gwinnett County Officers Robert McDonald and Michael Bongiovanni pulled over Demetrius Hollins, a 22-year-old black man, for a broken light and a missing license plate and ordered him out of his car. In a horrific incident that was caught on video, Hollins, who complied with the officers and exited the vehicle with his hands in the air, was punched by Bongiovanni before being thrown to the ground and handcuffed. While Hollins was lying on the ground in handcuffs, McDonald ran up to him and stomped him in the head. Both officers were fired when the video surfaced the next day, later being arrested and charged with felony aggravated assault. Bongiovanni, who had 67 prior brutality complaints, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years of probation: McDonald took his case to trial and received the same sentence. In January, the lawsuit was settled for $400,000.

     On March 1st, 2022, Daniel MacKenzie, a former police officer in Roswell, Georgia, pleaded guilty to a horrific incident that took place on October 27th, 2018. He wrote on his police report that a man was attempting to break into cars in an apartment parking lot and ran when police showed up; both of these claims were lies: the suspect, like Hollins, was complying, and the suspect, like Hollins, was handcuffed when he was brutalized. This man, however, was punched and tased while lying on the ground. In exchange for his guilty plea, MacKenzie was sentenced to a year in prison and five years of probation for battery, simple battery, aggravated assault, making a false statement, and two counts of oath violation by a public official. As a convicted felon, he, like McDonald and Bongiovanni, will never be allowed to work as a police officer again.

     A third incident has not yet been settled but has resulted in two indictments for a much more serious charge: murder. Kristopher Hutchens, a Clayton County police officer, and Eric Heinze, a U.S. marshal, were charged in October 2021 for the August 5th, 2016, murder of Jamarion Robinson, a 26-year-old black man who was shot 76 times. His is the worst of any of these cases: he had no criminal history and was a college football star. When a call was placed related to Robinson needing mental health assistance, 16 officers stormed the home, burned him with grenades, handcuffed him, drug him down the stairs, and shot his body to pieces. No body cameras were worn, but audio surfaced of shooting going on for three minutes and forensic evidence indicates that the two continued shooting repeatedly while he was lying face-down on the ground. A month later, five officers were indicted for the September 20, 2019, murder of a 24-year-old Hispanic man, Fernando Rodriguez. Henry County Officers Robert Butera and Quinton Phillips and former Hampton Officers Mason Lewis, Marcus Stroud, and Gregory Bowlden were charged with one count of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, one count of aggravated assault, and violation of oath of office each for tasing a mentally ill man more than a dozen times before lying him on the ground and suffocating him to death. Hampton has already paid $3 million to Rodriguez's family, while Henry County is expected to settle for a similar amount. These five men will have their day in court: if convicted, they face mandatory sentences of life without parole.

     Meanwhile, Officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan have yet to even have a trial date set after pleading not guilty to felony charges related to the homicide of Rayshard Brooks, one of the more famous instances of police brutality across the country that took place in the context of growing outrage over the murder of George Floyd. 

     Georgia has had three officers convicted of felony charges and nine officers indicted for five separate instances of police brutality in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, with tens of millions of dollars in civil settlements being paid, and that is on top of the convictions for the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery (and indictment of DA Jackie Johnson and five officers for corruption in that department) and the critical role black voters played in the 2020 election. Georgia is, without question, becoming probably the most important state in the fight for racial justice. We'll update you on these cases as they play out.