When she came to collect her son’s belongings from the Chamblee apartment where, a day earlier, he was fatally shot by a DeKalb County police officer, Carolyn Baylor-Giummo received a much-needed hug.
“He was my friend,” a little girl, and neighbor, told Baylor-Giummo.
Anthony Hill made a lot of friends in his 27 years, his mother said. His funeral, held last week in Moncks Corner, S.C., had to be moved to the a high school auditorium to accommodate all the mourners.
The Air Force veteran was buried in his uniform, his coffin draped in the American flag. Hill survived Afghanistan, where he loaded bombs onto carriers, but but came home with bipolar disorder, his mother said. His struggle to find the proper medication would play a significant role in his death.
DeKalb police officer Robert Olsen was dispatched to The Heights apartment complex on March 9 on a report of a person acting strangely. Hill had climbed down from his second floor apartment, nude, knocking on neighbor's doors but threatening no one, said Christopher Chestnut, the attorney for Hill's family.
Hill was still nude, and obviously unarmed, when Olsen, a seven-year veteran of the DeKalb force, arrived on the scene. Witnesses said Hill was walking briskly towards the officer, who ordered him to stop. Hill continued to approach the officer but his gait slowed, Chestnut said, his arms either outstretched or over his head.
Olsen, according to DeKalb Public Safety Director Cedric Alexander, interpreted a threat and shot Hill twice in the chest. His death has been the subject of headlines nationwide and protests locally. The GBI is investigating.
“I’m a Christian. I pray for (Olsen),” Hill’s grandmother, Theola Baylor, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The question is why. We still don’t understand why (Hill was shot).”
The full interview, including video remarks and family photographs, will be posted later today on myajc.com.
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