DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — The family of a DeKalb County man shot and killed by police officers at his Decatur home in 2021 just filed a federal lawsuit against the county.
They claim this is a violation of the Americans with disabilities act. The lawsuit claims the county is failing to train police officers to deal with mental illness.
We now know that police had been to that home nearly a month before the shooting and saw that Matthew Zadok Williams, 35, was having a “behavioral health crisis.”
The officer who reported that was one of the officers back there on the scene weeks later in April 2021 on the day Williams was killed in his own DeKalb County home.
“They failed my son, they failed the police officers that were there, and they have failed this county,” Williams’ mother Chris Ann Lewis said.
The family isn’t suing individual police officers, but the county itself.
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“DeKalb County pulled this trigger. The system pulled this trigger,” attorney Mawuli Davis said.
The lawsuit alleges DeKalb County violated the Americans with Disabilities Act for failing to train police officers how to deal with mental illness.
A 911 call from a neighbor on April 12, claimed Williams was homeless and trespassing.
Police say when they responded, Williams lunged at an officer with a knife. An officer then shot him, and Williams ran back inside his home.
But the lawsuit alleges DeKalb County should have known a month earlier that Williams was having a mental health crisis and that he wasn’t trespassing.
On body cam video from the incident, one of the very first things a responding officer says is that he thought the home belonged to Williams. That’s because the officer had been there and talked to Williams before.
More than an hour later, the body cam video shows he mentions that to a fellow officer, saying “(Williams) talked to me through the window.”
According to an incident report from March 16, that same officer was called to the home just weeks earlier after Williams called 911.
In that incident report the officer determined Williams was having a “behavioral health crisis.”
But the lawsuit alleges DeKalb County did nothing between March 16 and April 12 about that.
A police report was not even filed.
“He suffered from a mental health crisis. It should not have been criminalized,” Lewis said.
Last June, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced her office would take no criminal action against any of the police officers involved.
“We found that the use of force, in this case, was justified under the law,” Boston said during a news conference at the time.
The lawsuit blames the county itself for the lack of training for and response to a mental health emergency.
“I don’t want any other mother to feel this devastating pain that every waking moment I feel,” Lewis said.
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