A now-retired Atlanta police officer was found guilty Friday in a case in which he beat a man accused of stealing a tomato at Walmart, Channel 2 Action News reported.
While off duty in October 2014, Trevor King, 49, severely beat Tyrone Carnegay after accusing him of stealing a tomato, for which Carnegay said he had a receipt in his pocket.
King was in uniform at the store on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard downtown when he stopped Carnegay, grabbed his shirt and started to strike him with his baton, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a December 2016 statement, when King was indicted on charges of excessive force.
King’s retirement took effect in January and a trial began in July.
The case caught the attention of the FBI after a mistrial that resulted from inconsistencies in the police report, Channel 2 reported.
King testified over the summer that Carnegay reached for King’s gun belt, but store surveillance footage failed to show any such action, the news station reported.
Charges against King included falsifying a police report and use of unreasonable force.
A civil suit was filed against King in April, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
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