Family of woman killed in APD raid asks for sanctions in lawsuit

By Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A relative of the 92-year-old woman killed in an Atlanta police raid three years ago asked a federal judge Friday to sanction the city for withholding documents in a wrongful death lawsuit.

"Such evasion and misconduct makes a mockery of the truth-finding process that is at the heart of the judicial system and must be severely punished," said a motion filed by Sarah Dozier, the victim's niece.

An APD spokeswoman, Sgt. Lisa Keyes, deferred comment to the city's law department. Acting city attorney Roger Bhadari said the city is reviewing the motion and "will respond accordingly." Beyond that, he said, the city has no further comment.

In 2007, Dozier, the niece of Kathryn Johnston, filed suit against the city and APD over Johnston's killing.

In November 2006, an APD officer obtained an illegal, no-knock search warrant, allowing police to batter down the 92-year-old woman's front door. After a terrified Johnston, thinking her home was being invaded, fired a warning shot, she was killed as narcotics officers unloaded their weapons into the home. Three former city police officers are now serving prison terms for their roles in the incident.

The lawsuit contends an APD quota system was the "driving force" behind Johnston's death. To meet their arrest and warrant quotas, narcotics officers lied on the search warrant, the suit said.

The family's lawyers previously asked APD to turn over any documents about a quota system as part of a pretrial fact-finding process known as discovery. The department indicated no such documents existed, and APD Chief Richard Pennington, in pretrial testimony, denied the existence of a quota system, the motion said.

But the motion said that Dozier's lawyers obtained documents showing the existence of a quota system from APD Sgt. Scott Kreher, the head of an Atlanta police union, who got the documents from anonymous sources. During pretrial testimony, APD officers verified the documents' authenticity, the motion said.

The motion asks Senior U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Shoob to enter a default judgment. This would mean no trial would be necessary to determine whether the APD was liable for Johnston's death. In that case, the only thing left to be determined would be how much the city would pay in damages.

"I've never seen a situation like this...where there were quotas that were explicitly set out and implemented throughout the department," one of Dozier's lawyers, Bill Mitchell, said Friday. "It's shocking."