Nearly four years after he was indicted for ordering his men to beat teenage burglary suspects, a DeKalb County police sergeant will stand trial on Tuesday.
But Sgt. Anth0ny Remone Robinson, indicted on aggravated assault and racketeering charges in 2012, will stand trial alone. His two codefendants, ex-officers Blake Norwood and Arthur Parker, avoided prison time after reaching plea deals late last month and will be called as prosecution witnesses.
The charges stem from two similar incidents. The first took place in December 2010 involving three teens, ages 15 and 16, who fit the description of a caller reporting a burglary in progress.
“When officers arrived … they were handcuffed, and Sgt. Robinson gave the order to beat these young men with hands and feet,” DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James said at the time of the indictment.
The second alleged assault occurred in November 2011. Travarrius Williams, in custody for burglary, said he was handcuffed and then beaten by Norwood and Parker. Williams, 18 at the time, filed a civil suit against the officers, alleging internal injuries and a broken tooth.
"Both of them punched me in the face, " Williams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2012. "Then they slammed my face into the windshield."
Williams said it appeared the two officers who allegedly beat him were ordered to do so. The officers said Williams spit on them, which he denied.
In exchange for their testimony against Robinson, Norwood and Parker each pleaded guilty to one count of violation of oath by a public officer and another of making false statements. They were sentenced under the First Offender Act, avoiding prison time. Each received identical sentences of 10 years probation and were ordered to perform 200 hours of community service work. They can never work in law enforcement again.
Another former DeKalb officer, Tarik J. Crumpton, is scheduled to go to trial in April on a 19-count indictment of perjury, making false statements and violation of oath by a public officer.
An internal affairs investigation, obtained by The AJC, revealed that Crumpton wrongfully detained and beat Brian Peterson in October 2010 while working off-duty as a security guard at a Stone Mountain sports bar.
Peterson lost his job as an insurance broker after being arrested for a felony. Prosecutors later dropped all charges, which have been expunged from his record.
Crumpton had received 14 civilian complaints over five years, half of them sustained, internal documents showed.
Before his indictment and subsequent termination, Robinson had also received 14 citizen complaints, six of them sustained, according to internal documents.
No trial date has been set for former DeKalb officer Robert Olsen, who last month became the first law enforcement officer in Georgia since 2010 to face prosecution for the shooting death of a civilian. Olsen, who is white, was charged with shooting and killing a naked and unarmed black man outside an apartment building in Chamblee in 2014.
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