Police officers Sean Emmer and Adam Cooley have been fired from the force after the surveillance video of Salvation Army’s halfway house showed their excessive use of force. The incident took place in June 2012 when federal inmate Adam Tatum (37) got into a dispute after refusing to take a drug test in Residential Re-Entry Center where he had just returned. Surveillance tape shows the two officers repeatedly hitting Tatum with batons, punching him in the torso, choking him and dragging him by the broken leg.

Police Chief Bobby Dodd said that he could count 48 strikes from Emmer’s baton and to him it was an example of excessive use of force strong enough to fire the two officers. Tatum spent more than two days in intensive care with multiple fractures of both legs. The damage to his left leg will most likely cause him to limp for the rest of his life.

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Cooley and Emmers’ attorney, Bryan Hoss, claims that Tatum was on drugs at the time of the assault, but the hospital didn’t perform a blood test so there is no evidence to support it. Tatum’s attorney has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the Chattanooga Police Department , the City of Chattanooga, officers Emmer, Cooley, Smith and fourteen more officers for the violation of Tatum’s civil rights.