A now-former Clayton County police officer has been indicted on a simple battery charge stemming from a 2014 incident in which he allegedly assaulted a 69-year-old man mistaken for a burglar.
Clayton County District Attorney Tracy Lawson confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that ex-Clayton officer Ryan Hall was indicted Wednesday on the misdemeanor charge. Channel 2 Action News reported that his bond was set at $2,000.
Hall and at least three other officers responded to a May 2, 2014, burglary call at a residence near Jonesboro, where they encountered Dhoruba Bin-Wahad. It was later learned that Bin-Wahad was moving into the once-abandoned home on Downing Court, but responding officers reportedly believed him to be a burglar and attempted to arrest him after he "lied" about a fellow burglar being in the house.
The “fellow burglar” turned out to be another police officer.
In his incident report, Hall admitted that Bin-Wahad’s left shoulder and head hit a brick wall during a struggle, but he described Bin-Wahad as “uncooperative and verbally argumentative.”
Cellphone video taken by a neighbor, however, showed officers forcefully pulling Bin-Wahad from a seated position on his front porch, pushing him up against the wall, then forcing him onto the ground with one arm behind his back.
Hall was fired after the video was made public.
Bin-Wahad was handcuffed at the scene but was not arrested or charged in the incident.
Attempts to contact Bin-Wahad’s attorney, Mawuli Mel Davis, were not immediately successful Wednesday afternoon.
Synamon Baldwin, president of the Clayton County branch of the NAACP, told The AJC that she was “shocked but pleased” about the indictment.
A Clayton County Police Department spokesman did not immediately respond to inquiries.
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