When American police brutality is discussed, people now think of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Ferguson, Cleveland, Tulsa, and even Albuquerque. But curiously, the entire state of Georgia has pretty much gotten a pass.

It shouldn't.

Atlanta's leading paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in partnership with Channel 2 Action News did an incredibly deep dive into police brutality in my home state. What they found is deeply disturbing.



The AJC/Channel 2 investigation found that: Not a single fatal police shooting since 2010 has gone to trial. Two-thirds of police shooting cases never went to a grand jury because district attorneys used their discretion not to bring charges. Of 48 cases that went to grand jury, only nine involved the presentation of a criminal indictment. In the rest, the prosecutor simply asked the grand jury to determine if the shooting was justified or unjustified.

Consequently, only one officer has ever been indicted in Georgia and less than 24 hours after the indictment, a judge overturned it. It's the Georgia way. Not one case of police murder has even gone to trial.

When it comes to using lethal force, Georgia police are absolutely above the law. As expected, the study found that the majority of times police used lethal force, it was often when they were faced with extremely dangerous circumstances. This is fine. This is fair.

What crosses the ethical boundaries of fairness is the completely unrealistic and downright ridiculous possibility that of the 171 times Georgia police officers killed someone, they were never in error. According to the record, Georgia police are mathematically perfect when it comes to lethal force.

That, though, is why such a deep dive is critical. They aren't perfect. Egregiously unethical cases of police violence exist in Georgia, but even in those cases ... crickets.

This is by design. Here's how ...