The man who was shot by an Atlanta police officer near the Georgia Dome disputes investigators’ accounts of the incident.
“I never threatened him,” Noel Hall, a North Carolina resident, told Channel 2 Action News. “I never drove in his direction.”
Hall, 46, and his family were at a Supercross event about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 25 when they encountered Sgt. Mathieu Cadeau, who was working an off-duty job directing traffic.
According to the GBI, which is investigating the incident, Hall disregarded the officer’s directions and drove in the direction of Cadeau. The officer fired his gun, hitting Hall, who was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, treated and released.
Hall was not armed.
The bullet “missed my heart by a couple of inches,” Hall told Channel 2. “I almost ended up dead.”
Hall said he was driving to a designated pit area when the incident happened.
Cadeau “wouldn’t look at my pass to let me get back into the pits, so I made a sharp right and drove around him,” Hall said.
Hall’s attorney, Shean Williams, agreed with his client.
“The physical evidence shows that the trajectory of the bullet shows that he fired his weapon from the driver’s side of the van,” Williams said. “So he was not any threat.”
Cadeau, a 10-year APD veteran, has been placed on paid leave during the investigation.
APD issued a statement that said, “In 2016, the Atlanta Police Department had over 1.3 million citizen contacts. Out of those interactions, we only had seven officer-involved shootings.
“This year, we have experienced three. Our goal every year is to have none and we work tirelessly toward that effort.”
When the GBI finishes its investigation, the agency will turn over its findings to the Fulton County District Attorney's Office for review, spokeswoman Nelly Miles said.
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