Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones broke down Savannah police body camera video in five steps to determine how a controversial arrest from last summer complies with Savannah Police Department use-of-force policy.
- Refusal to comply with valid police commands
Starting at the 2:02 mark of Vollrath’s BWC footage, the first announcement from SPD can be heard. In this announcement, they identify themselves as SPD, announce that they have multiple warrants for his arrest and instruct Robinson to exit the hotel room unarmed and with his hands up.
In response to this announcement, Jones said she recognized after multiple rewatches of the video that Robinson deadbolts the door to the hotel room. Around the 2:17 mark, an officer can be heard announcing that “he’s just locked it,” referring to the door of Robinson’s hotel room. This refusal to comply with SPD commands and instead retreating into the room increases the level of danger to the officers, according to Jones.
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“They don’t know if he has a weapon. They don’t know if he has a hostage. They don’t know how many weapons that he might have. They don’t know if there are any other people in the room,” Jones said.
Jones added that the fact of the officers possessing multiple warrants for his arrest is what makes this case different from “a George Floyd or even an Ahmaud Arbery, or any of the cases that we look at around the nation.”…