The family of a Georgia man who died after officers used Tasers on him more than a dozen times has reportedly been awarded $1 million in a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of East Point, Georgia.
But despite the dollar amount, both officers are still free men.
Back in April, two police officers used their Tasers on 24-year-old Gregory Towns Jr., a young Black man who posed no threat to their safety at the time.
According to the lawsuit, Towns was “handcuffed, not resisting and did not present a threat of imminent bodily harm to the officers or anyone else.”
The Atlanta suburb finally reached a settlement in the case and according to the family’s attorney, Chris Stewart, they have been awarded the maximum amount covered by the city’s insurance policy.
While Stewart did not mention a specific dollar amount, it was later revealed to the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the maximum amount covered by the city’s policy is $1 million.
Stewart did say that the city had already taken steps to preventing something like this from ever happening again.
“During the court of settlement negotiations, the city confirmed that every East Point officer who has been issued a Taser has been retrained on the use of the device since the incident,” Stewart said in a statement, according to Reuters.
To this day nobody has received answers as to why the officers used such excessive force and subjected Towns to such a pointless and painful death.
Earlier this year the officers responded to a domestic violence dispute that involved Towns.
The young man took off running from police but soon became too tired to continue on. After the pursuit, Towns was also too tired to even stand back up. That’s when the officers decided to use their Tasers.
The Fulton Country medical examiner’s office confirmed that the cause of death was “electrical stimulation” and “hypertensive cardiovascular disease exacerbated by physical exertion.”
Since the incident, one officer has been fired while the other decided to resign.
The case is still under investigation.
