Standing on the steps of the Fulton County courthouse Monday morning, Jimmy Atchison’s family praised the recent murder indictment of a former Atlanta police officer who fatally shot the 21-year-old nearly four years ago while working on an FBI task force.
It was a significant step toward justice, the family said. But it took too long and came too late for Atchison’s mother, Cynthia, to see it. They said she never recovered after losing her only son and died in May.
“It’s been a long, hard road,” Atchison’s aunt, Tammy Featherstone, said Monday. “Now it’s time for us to stand together and make sure that (the officer) is held accountable. Not just indicted, but serves time for the murder of Jimmy Atchison.”
Atchison was shot in January 2019 by Sung Kim, who was working with a federal fugitive task force that day. Atchison was wanted for allegedly stealing a woman’s cellphone at gunpoint, but by the time the task force located him and tried to make the arrest, he was unarmed, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. Kim, however, told investigators he believed Atchison had a gun, though no guns were recovered in the apartment.
A GBI investigation determined Atchison was given conflicting commands as he hid inside a friend’s broom closet at a northwest Atlanta apartment complex. One task force member told him to come out with his hands up. Another told him not to move, the family’s attorney Tanya Miller has said. When Atchison opted to surrender and stepped out of the closet with his hands up, Kim opened fire, striking him once in the face.
In a federal wrongful death lawsuit filed in October 2020, family attorneys argued there was no reason for a federal fugitive task force to have been involved in the first place. Citing an FBI internal investigation that determined Atchison was not an interstate flight risk, the family alleges Kim “manufactured” a basis for obtaining a federal warrant by misrepresenting to a federal judge that Atchison would likely flee the state.
Kim, a 26-year department veteran, retired months after the shooting. He was indicted Friday on one count of felony murder, one count of involuntary manslaughter and one count of violating his oath of office.
Atlanta police declined to comment Monday.
Featherstone said the indictment would have “meant everything” to her sister if she were still alive.
“From the day that he was murdered, her focus was justice. She wanted to see Sung Kim in jail for the murder of her son,” Featherstone said, adding that depression eventually took hold of her sister.
Added Miller, “We saw the life slowly sort of creep out of her as she waited for justice.”
While the family is happy that the wheels of justice are finally turning, they remain frustrated that it took nearly four years for charges to be brought.
Former Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said in March 2020 he was prepared to seek charges against Kim, but those plans came to a halt after the COVID-19 pandemic caused the suspension of grand jury proceedings in the state for more than a year. Additionally, the family’s attorney said Monday that it is their position that certain federal entities, including the FBI, “deliberately delayed producing information and deliberately slowed down the Fulton County DA’s investigation.”
The FBI did not return a request for comment.
Christina Matacotta
Christina Matacotta
Another delaying factor was that Kim was not wearing a body camera the day of the shooting, as the FBI did not sanction their use at the time despite APD’s policy requiring all of its officers to wear them. After the FBI refused to allow officers on loan to wear the cameras, former APD Chief Erika Shields ended the department’s relationship with the task force.
The FBI has since changed its policy, allowing federally deputized officers to activate their body cameras while working under their banner. As a result, APD has resumed the partnership.
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