Hey stop the car, stop the car.
2 Atlanta police
officers approach a vehicle
with a suspected drunk driver
behind the wheel in April 2019.
Poor Tyler Griffin complies, steps
out of the car and then this happens.
You do not swipe. You lift my hands
from the fall bricks,
Griffin's left ankle officer
Donald Vickers at 15 year veteran
on the force tackled him.
Griffin tries to stand
up and walk, but can't.
Officer Vickers then mocks Griffin,
calling him a little girl. Right
now, a few months later,
Griffin told 11 alive he thought
Vickers actions were unnecessary.
I've never been in
any trouble with the police at all,
so it's just one of those things where
why am I being attacked like this?
Here's how the tackle
happened in slow motion.
They should have tried
something before the tackle.
This is a deposition with former
Atlanta Police Chief Erica Shields,
conducted last year before
she resigned from the city,
but no longer leading the department.
It's part of a pending federal lawsuit
Griffin filed against the department,
alleging officer Vickers
used excessive force.
Second, I think it was just it
was unnecessary. I would not support
Vickers decision making. Shields isn't
the only one who thinks Officer
Vickers used unnecessary force.
This APD internal affairs
investigator and this training
instructor felt the same way.
Look man based on what you saw.
Mr Fight was the use of force
justified in in the video?
From what I saw, I wouldn't think
so. Yeah, I
wouldn't have tackled somebody like that.
For a swiping of the hand in December 2019,
the Department's Office of Professional
Standards cited Vickers for
breaking multiple police policies,
including cutting off his body camera,
and failing to provide medical attention.
But for the unnecessary force claim,
the city exonerated him.
That means it believed Vickers
actions were justified.
It's a huge problem because
clearly if opsi exonerated this.
That's that's a much larger issue.
I didn't realize that.
I'm wondering why that file
didn't make it to my office.
I'm surprised too. Lee Reed
is the executive director of
Atlantis Citizen Review Board,
which investigates officer misconduct.
Here we go, we asked him to
review the body camera too.
Based on what you saw,
would you have exonerated
that officer for use of force?
I don't think exoneration
would have occurred.
This isn't the first time someone is
accused Vickers of violence on duty.
A review investigation
uncovered three other cases,
including pointing an AR15 rifle
at three men in 2010 outside
underground Atlanta while off
duty 20 of the rifle alone
would have seemed to have risen to
the level of a dismissal shield,
said Vickers.
Cases illustrate this cities need
that changed the way it disciplines.
Officers she outlined this policy
shift in December 2020 that
has never been implemented.
Are you going to have to
prescribe that the deputy chief,
the assistant chief,
and the chief will all sign
off on all use of force files?
What we're seeing today is
there's definitely some stopgaps
were just are not acceptable.
If the chief sought as a big problem.
Yeah, it's a big problem.
Hi Mr Vickers remains on the force.
He declined to be interviewed but
in a deposition denies ever using
excessive force against anyone,
including Griffin.
Once you swipe in officers hands,
you become a threat at that
point and I alleviated.
Do you have any regrets
about the way that you treated Mr.
Griffin? No Sir? He has to be
held accountable for what he did
and that that to me is a problem.