The killing of Anthony Hill, a mentally unstable man wandering naked in his apartment complex, was a tragedy.
Trying to put the cop who shot him away in prison for life on murder charges borders on travesty.
The trial against former DeKalb County police officer Robert "Chip" Olsen started last week, four and a half years since he fired two shots into Hill's neck and torso at close range.
Hill’s death, just months after the killing of a black man in Ferguson, Missouri, quickly became another illustration of a white cop gunning down an unarmed black man. Hill was not only unarmed, he was a naked, confused young war veteran who was well liked but in the midst of a psychotic breakdown, one possibly fueled by his time in Afghanistan.
Olsen, however, knew none of this while responding to the call that would tear apart many lives.
On the afternoon of March 9, 2015, the tall, gray-haired cop was eating lunch in his squad car when a call came in about a suspicious man. Soon, another call came, this one with more urgency — a Signal 22, a “demented person.” The man was now naked and walking around a Chamblee apartment complex. The caller told 911 he might be on drugs.
Olsen, 52 at the time, was a late-in-life cop with seven years on the force, a man with lots of training but comparatively little street experience. He was a cop who had ridden a desk and, in retrospect, had no business being out on the street.
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's upcoming Breakdown podcast on the trial, a cabdriver in 2009 complained to DeKalb police that Olsen got on his loudspeaker and threatened to ticket her. It was "the craziest, freakiest thing that ever happened to me as a cabdriver," she said. The cabbie told Olsen's superiors that he was bound to shoot someone.
» PHOTOS: The Robert Olsen Murder Trial
» PODCAST: 'BREAKDOWN' Episode 1 Launches
In 2011, a supervisor said Olsen needed to work on “people skills.” He was, according to the AJC podcast, “taken off the streets and sent to a familiar spot: Back behind a desk.”
But in late 2013, DeKalb needed more bodies in patrol cars, so Olsen was back out there to answer the myriad calls that cops get.
Hill, a South Carolina guy who spent nearly five years in the Air Force before being medically retired, moved to Atlanta to get into the music business. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder but stopped taking his meds because they messed with his head and the feeling in his jaw. Being a singer, he didn’t like that.
On the fatal day, Hill drove to the gym, as he often did, but for some reason walked home. Not long after that, he was seen wearing only shorts and lying down on the ground at the apartment complex, then trying to enter the business office. Those in the office locked the door and called 911.
Soon, he was wandering naked, causing another 911 call. The manager later testified that she called 911 because she was worried that Hill would injure himself or get beaten up by residents.
Two maintenance workers tried to coax Hill back to his apartment, telling him the police were on the way. “Don’t worry,” he responded, “the police are my friend.”
One worker, Pedro Castillo Flores, told the jury that Hill said, “The devil is coming.”
Olsen finally arrived, and witnesses said Hill started jogging toward the squad car. Almost immediately, the cop brandished his pistol and loudly yelled, “Stop! Stop!”
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At first during his jog, Hill's hands were held high, almost in "surrender," Castillo Flores said. But then Hill dropped his hands low behind his hips, "Like daring him (Olsen) to do something."
Olsen backed up and then fired twice.
During opening remarks in the trial, DeKalb prosecutor Buffy Thomas started out with, “Unarmed. Unclothed. Unable to harm.”
Hill was “stark naked and had nowhere to hide a weapon,” she said, yet “the officer immediately reaches for his firearm, the only lethal weapon he has on his belt.”
Later, she said Olsen originally lied, telling his backup officer, “He attacked me,” and then demonstrating how Hill hit him in the chest.
That wasn’t true. Hill never reached Olsen.
The prosecutor said Olsen later spoke with GBI investigators but never talked about his fear. “Never ever. If you were afraid, a week later you’d tell the world,” Thomas said.
Being in fear for his life is key to the defense.
“He was uncomfortable. Uncomfortable does not mean afraid,” Thomas said. “He was uncomfortable that this naked man was running at him.”
In essence, the prosecution argues that Olsen killed Hill not out of fear, but because the thought of a naked man grabbing him was icky.
The prosecution also relies on the unarguable fact that Hill was a nice guy when not having a breakdown. In fact, they asked just about every witness about Hill’s “reputation for being peaceful.”
Repeatedly asking apartment managers and maintenance men about Hill’s reputation for “peacefulness” is absurd. They had little real interaction with him. It’s like asking me about my mailman’s reputation for peacefulness. Yes, I see him a couple of times a week, we wave, and he’s never punched me in the face or kicked my dog, so I guess he’s peaceful.
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Defense attorney Don Samuel portrayed his guy as panicked and terrified, repeatedly saying he had to make a decision in “7 seconds.” He used that term at least 10 times.
Samuel said Olsen was never told that Hill was a resident, might be harmless, had served in Afghanistan, had mental health issues, and was a nice guy.
“As far as he knows, he’s an intruder scaring people in this complex,” Samuel said. “Chip Olsen is scared to death.”
He talked about Hill being naked, how it wasn’t benign. “I just want you to think for a second how frightening that is,” Samuel said. Police say naked people are often on drugs or suffering severe mental episodes where reason is not an option.
Olsen screwed up by pulling his gun first. He did it, Samuel said, to “control the situation.”
“The problem,” the attorney added, “is once you pull your gun, your options are limited.”
The situation wasn’t controlled. Hill kept coming. Olsen, who had never in his career used his gun, or a baton, or pepper spray, and had just once tried to fire a Taser, backed up as Hill continued to advance.
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Samuel told jurors, “You are not here as an advocate of a cause … or an ideology. Not Black Lives Matter or MeToo. Here, you are to decide one case.”
Interestingly, three days before he was killed, Hill posted on Facebook, “The key thing to remember is, #blacklivesmatter, ABSOLUTELY, but not more so than any other life. To express outrage at the idea that #alllivesmatter, you have to have some kind of hate in your heart. Don’t be the victim that becomes the antagonist and perpetuates the problem.”
Sounds like he thought the police were his friends.
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Outside the courthouse, Nathan Knight, head of the DeKalb chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, stood with a sign saying, “Justice for Anthony Hill.”
Olsen, he said, is a “victim too” in this sad saga but needs to be punished.
“It’s a tough spot for me to be in,” Knight said. “These men are in intense situations. Their lives are on the line. It’s an intense job. We need to help police in our neighborhoods. But we need accountability too.”
Indeed, accountability is needed. And probably punishment. But it’s not murder.
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