A former Atlanta police officer facing murder and other charges in the fatal task force shooting of an unarmed man pleaded not guilty this week in federal court.
Sung Kim, a 26-year veteran of the police department, shot Jimmy Atchison Jan. 22, 2019, while working as a member of an FBI fugitive task force. Atchison, a 21-year-old father of two, was wanted for allegedly stealing a woman’s cellphone at gunpoint, but an investigation found he did not have a weapon on him when he was killed.
Credit: Christina Matacotta
Credit: Christina Matacotta
Officers chased Atchison through a northwest Atlanta apartment complex before surrounding him as he hid inside a friend’s closet.
Atchison’s family said he was given conflicting commands while hiding from officers beneath a pile of clothes. One task force member told him to come out with his hands up. Another told him not to move, they said.
Kim later told investigators he shot Atchison because he saw him make a sudden movement with his right arm “as if he was going to shoot him.”
Kim turned himself in late last year after being indicted by a Fulton County grand jury on charges of felony murder, aggravated assault, involuntary manslaughter and two counts of violating his oath of office. But his attorneys successfully got the case removed to federal court last month, citing Kim’s role with the FBI’s Atlanta Metropolitan Major Offender Task Force at the time of the shooting.
“At all relevant times, Kim was acting under color of federal law, pursuant to his deputation as a member of the FBI AMMO Task Force,” his attorney, Don Samuel wrote.
He said Kim knew Atchison had previously robbed someone at gunpoint and instructed him not to move after finding him in the closet.
“Disobeying this lawful command, Atchison raised his right arm in a fast motion,” Samuel wrote in a court filing. “Reasonably fearing for his safety and the safety of his colleagues who were present in the room, Kim shot and killed Atchison.”
At the time of the shooting, federal policy prohibited task force members from wearing body cameras. So the deadly encounter was not captured on video despite APD’s policy requiring its officers to wear them.
Following Atchison’s death, former APD Chief Erika Shields ended the department’s relationship with the task force for refusing to allow officers on loan to wear the cameras.
The FBI since changed its policy, allowing federally deputized officers to activate their body cameras while serving warrants, executing searches or making arrests. As a result, APD resumed the partnership.
Atchison’s family pushed for years for criminal charges to be brought against Kim. They repeatedly called for the Fulton DA’s office to present the case to a grand jury and regularly held rallies outside the courthouse calling for Kim’s indictment.
Former DA Paul Howard said in March 2020 he was prepared to seek charges against Kim, but those plans came to a halt when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the suspension of grand jury proceedings for more than a year.
When current DA Attorney Fani Willis took office in 2021, she instructed her staff to work through the “large backlog” of police use-of-force incidents. Her office has since indicted numerous current and former law enforcement officers in years-old cases.
“It’s been a long, hard road,” Atchison’s aunt, Tammy Featherstone, said last year after Kim’s indictment. “Now it’s time for us to stand together and make sure that (he) is held accountable.
A federal immunity hearing in the former officer’s case will likely be scheduled for early next year.
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