A Georgia police officer was terminated on Saturday for using his police cruiser as a dangerous weapon to mow down a fleeing suspect.
The incident happened on Friday, June 1, when Officer Taylor Saulters of the Athens-Clarke County Police Department was on routine patrol and spotted 23-year-old Timmy Patmon running on foot in the area of Vine Street and Nellie B Avenue.
Saulters knew Patmon was wanted on an outstanding felony warrant, so he pursued the suspect while Officer Hunter Blackmon gave chase on foot.
Saulters drove up on a curb, blowing out one of the vehicle’s tires, as Patmon dashed into the street. Saulters accelerated again and rammed Patmon from behind with the vehicle’s right front bumper.
As Patmon struggled with Saulters and Blackmon who were trying to cuff him, Saulters threatened to tase him if he didn’t stop resisting.
The rookie called dispatch for help with crowd control as an angry mob of inner city residents began shouting at the cops. One woman yelled repeatedly, “Why’d you hit that man with your car like that?”
“I got him with my car. That’s what they’re yelling about,” Saulters told a plainclothes cop who arrived on the scene.
Patmon complained of pain in his leg and hip, “Man, you hit me with the car!”
Saulters replied: “Oh, I know, I know what I did. Why’d you run?”
After officers sat Patmon on a curb to await transportation, the same woman who screamed at the cops earlier approached and gave Patmon a cigarette to smoke.
Patmon was transported to a hospital where he was treated for minor cuts and abrasions.
He was booked into the Clarke County jail and charged with obstruction of a law enforcement officer.
Saulters was initially placed on administrative leave on Friday while the incident was under investigation.
In subsequent interviews with his superiors, Saulters denied intentionally hitting Patmon with his vehicle.
“I didn’t hit him with the car, I blocked him with the car,” he said. “He ran into the hood of my car and bounced off.”
After reviewing dash cam and body cam videos of the incident, Saulters was let go from his job just one day later.
The suspect’s mother told Channel 2’s Wendy Halloran she saw her son on the ground and immediately feared for the worst.
“I thought my son was dead,” mother Tammy LaShay Brown Patmon said.
“It’s police brutality, it sure is. It’s wrong,” Brown Patmon told Halloran.
ACCPD Chief Scott Freeman fired rookie cop Taylor Saulters (L) Saturday after reviewing body camera video that shows he swerved to the right at suspect Timmy Patmon and hit him. ACCPD says they don't believe it was intentional but negligent. See for yourself at 11pm @wsbtv pic.twitter.com/8RFO3AuZVV
— Wendy Halloran (@WHalloranWSB) June 3, 2018
The rookie cop is the son of police Capt. Jerry Saulters who heads up the criminal investigative division.
Saulters was on the job for less than a year when he was fired.
