Fatal police shooting leads to complaint

The mother of a 28-year-old man who died in a July gunfight with Atlanta police says she has filed a complaint against the two officers involved in the shooting.

In the written complaint dated Sept. 2, Melissa Clark reiterated her claim that one of the officers stood over her son Montellis Clark’s body and fired numerous shots into his back July 15 in southwest Atlanta.

“After my son was down and unarmed and secured, Officer [Clarence] Tosh stood over my son and shot him multiple times,” Clark wrote.

The commander of the Atlanta Police Department’s internal affairs unit, Maj. Lane Hagin, would not confirm that Melissa Clark filed a complaint, but said in an e-mail that his unit has talked to her as part of an ongoing investigation, which is routine in all police shootings.

Clark also wrote that neither Tosh, nor Gregory Dubose, the other officer, identified themselves as police.

Police say the officers fatally shot Clark in a Cascade Road driveway after he pulled out a gun and fired at them. Clark’s brother, Tim Clark, also was shot once in the back.

Dubose had a gunshot wound to the face that was not life-threatening, and Tosh took a bullet to the chest area of his bulletproof vest.

Atlanta police have refused to discuss Clark’s claims, saying that they are conducting an investigation into the shooting.

She added that the autopsy on her son would reveal “unnecessary gunshots” to her son’s body.

The autopsy showed that Montellis Clark had 39 gunshot entrance wounds — five of them to his back.

But the doctor who performed the autopsy, Karen Sullivan of the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office, said the results could not confirm whether Clark was shot while already face down on a driveway.

Two exit wounds on Clark’s stomach were “shored” — there were abrasions around the wounds — which could be consistent with someone being shot while on a driveway, Sullivan said.

Exit wounds become shored when the skin where a bullet exits comes into contact with something else, such as pavement, causing an abrasion, Sullivan said.

However, the doctor said, exit wounds also can be shored by clothing worn by someone who is shot while standing.