ATLANTA (AP) – Two police officers who were fired after video showed them using stun guns on a couple of college students, including one from San Antonio, during a large protest in Atlanta are looking to get their jobs back.
Former Investigators Mark Gardner and Ivory Streeter filed a court order through their attorney Monday against Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Police Chief Erika Shields.
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The lawsuit alleges that the officers were fired in violation of the city's code; without investigation, proper notice or a pre-disciplinary hearing.
College student pulled from car by Atlanta police in viral video is from San Antonio
Bottoms said that she and Shields reviewed body camera footage from the May 30 traffic stop and decided to immediately fire the officers and place three others on desk duty.
Gardner and Streeter have been charged with aggravated assault — Gardner for using a Taser against 20-year-old Taniyah Pilgrim and Streeter for using a Taser against 22-year-old Messiah Young — according to a warrant. Shields has since questioned the timing and appropriateness of the charges.
Pilgrim is from San Antonio.
The fired officers want their jobs to be reinstated, as well as back pay and benefits, according to Monday's court order. It states they were denied due process, and that the other officers who “engaged in substantially similar conduct,” were not dismissed.
Neither Bottoms nor the police department responded to a request for comment late Monday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.