The attorney representing the family of an Atlanta man shot and killed outside a police annex say the official version doesn’t add up.
Deaundre Phillips, 24, was killed Thursday night after police said he tried to flee the scene with a plainclothes officer hanging outside of the car he was driving. The unidentified officer shot Phillips once in the neck.
Lawyer Chris Stewart, hired by the victim’s relatives, said Phillips was asleep in the driver’s seat when confronted by two plainclothes officers in the parking lot of the Atlanta Public Safety Annex in the 3000 block of Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway. Phillips had accompanied a friend to the annex to pick up some documents, Stewart said.
He acknowledged Phillips tried to flee the scene but said it’s possible he thought he was being carjacked, as the officers weren’t in uniform.
“It just doesn’t add up,” Stewart said. “None of this makes any sense. A man who goes to a police station on purpose suddenly smokes weed in the parking lot?”
The investigation is being handled by the GBI. Agency spokeswoman Nelly Miles said Monday that investigators did find marijuana on Phillips.
Stewart also said Atlanta police spread false information about Phillips, falsely alleging he was in a gang and had a lengthy criminal record.
“Police departments mess up,” Stewart said. “They need people to feel bad for the officer and not the victim. They need to make this person someone you can look down to, you can’t relate to. So they make him a gang member, a criminal.”
A more complete story will appear later this afternoon on myajc.com.
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