In “Dey is a Gawd” news on this Saturday morning, a former police officer has been found guilty of assault and falsifying a police report in federal court for beating a man whom he accused of stealing a tomato.
Turns out the man had a receipt in his pocket for the fruit-vegetable, but that didn’t stop the officer from beating him with a baton so severely that he severed an artery and the man’s bone poked through his skin.
In October 2014, while moonlighting at a South West Atlanta Walmart, Trevor King, 49, severely beat Tyrone Carnegay after accusing him of stealing an item worth less than a dollar.
Of course, after the vicious assault, captured on video, King found the receipt in Carnegay’s pocket, and dropped a theft charge against him, but the 53-year-old was still jailed for three days on charges of “obstructing an investigation and assaulting a police officer.”
WSB-TV reports that Carnegay was chained to the bed at Atlanta’s Grady hospital and then jailed after undergoing emergency surgery.
Let that sink in: This man was walking out of a Walmart with a tomato—a tomato he paid for. An off-duty cop comes over to “investigate” and beats him so severely with a baton that a bone is left sticking out of his leg, rupturing an artery, which could have killed him. On top of that, he’s jailed for three days. And his medical bills are around $75,000.
The Department of Justice released this tweet after King’s conviction:
King, a former sergeant who retired in January—surely so he could collect his pension—was convicted by jurors Friday of using unreasonable force and falsifying a police report.
WSB-TV reports that King was a serial liar. Prosecutors presented two false incident reports filed by King in his 26-year career with the Atlanta Police Department. He was disciplined in both cases.
Here’s to King’s rotting in jail for a long time.
Read more at WSB-TV.