The Atlanta Police Department recently announced that 49-year-old Trevor King, a former police sergeant, was sentenced to five years in prison for beating a Walmart customer in 2014 while off-duty. According to court documents, the former Atlanta cop mistook the victim for a shoplifter.
In 2014, Trevor King, back then a police sergeant was at the center of a highly mediatized scandal about police brutality.
While off-duty, the former Atlanta cop went inside a Walmart to do some shopping. At one point, he observed an individual, later identified as 53-year-old Tyrone Carnegay, hanging around the vegetable aisle.
King observed him for a while longer just in time to see the man pocket a single tomato. Carnegay was headed towards the exit when King caught up to him.
Without even a warning, the former Atlanta cop whipped out his police baton and hit the man seven times across the chest and legs.
Although King discovered that Carnegay paid for the tomato, he still charged him with obstructing a shoplifting investigation and assaulting a law enforcement official.
To cover up his tracks, King filed a fake police report and sank below the radar until 2016 when he was charged with using unreasonable force and falsifying a police report.
Meanwhile, after spending time in the hospital for a right leg fracture, Carnegay landed in jail. Following King’s arrest, the man was cleared of charges and allowed to return home.