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DeKalb Cnty. v. Bailey; Thompson v. Bailey

The defendant county was entitled to summary judgment on the plaintiffs' 42 USC § 1983 claim arising from the shooting death of the victim during an encounter with a county police officer, as the evidence did not show that the county failed to train its officers to such an extent that it amounted to a deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of persons with whom the police come into contact.

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Officer Torrey Thompson and DeKalb County appeal from the trial court’s order denying their motions for summary judgment on claims filed against them after the shooting death of Lorenzo Matthews. Joshua Bailey, Matthews’s minor child, and Nicola Hatten, Matthews’s mother and the executor of his estate, brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and under state law for assault and battery, wrongful death, breach of duty, attorney fees, and punitive damages.1 For reasons that follow, we affirm the denial of summary judgment to Thompson and reverse the denial of summary judgment to DeKalb county.

Thompson, a police officer with the DeKalb County Police Department, shot Lorenzo Matthews during an encounter at the apartment complex where Matthews lived. Thompson was indicted for the murder of Matthews and the case went to the Georgia Supreme Court on appeal from the trial court’s grant of Thompson’s motion to suppress his statements following the shooting, and the denial of his claim of immunity. The Supreme Court set out the facts as follows:

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