Man dropped on head while handcuffed files federal lawsuit against metro Atlanta sheriff’s office
By: A man injured in a metro Atlanta jail is filing a federal lawsuit against the sheriff’s office.
Channel 2 Action News broke this story last year after a video captured Hall County deputies dropping Dewon Greer on his head while he was handcuffed, leaving him permanently scarred.
On Tuesday, Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes was at the federal courthouse in downtown Atlanta as Greer and his attorneys filed a lawsuit against the Hall County Sheriff’s Office.
A Georgia State Patrol trooper pulled Greer over for an issue with his tail light as he and his wife were headed to Lake Lanier to take their boat out.
To Greer’s surprise, his license was suspended.
“I’m like, ‘Why is my license suspended?’, and they said, ‘child support,’” Greer told Channel 2 Action News in November 2022. “And I know that was already paid, and I had my child support papers with me. I am not doing anything. I am not a threat.”
Greer said troopers wouldn’t even look at the paperwork even though he offered to get it, and took him to the Hall County Jail.
Things got much worse from there. Body camera video shows Hall County Sheriff’s deputies processing Greer, forcing him to his knees and then dropping him on the ground on his head.
The investigation determined that Greer’s driver’s license was suspended by mistake and that he was all paid up on his child support, so the arrest was a big misunderstanding.
“I just don’t want this to happen to anybody else, so that’s why I’m here today to try to prevent this same thing from happening because it could come out a whole different way than it came out for me,” Greer said Tuesday outside the federal courthouse.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes reached out to county officials who told her because there is pending litigation, they regrettably can not comment.
Greer told Channel 2 Action News, he just wants accountability.
There are nearly a dozen deputies’ names mentioned in the lawsuit, not because they physically harmed Greer but because, according to his attorney, they stood by and watched without doing anything.