ATLANTA — The shooting of Anthony Hill, a black U.S. Air Force veteran, occurred on March 9, 2015, in Chamblee, Georgia, near Atlanta. Hill was fatally shot by police officer Robert Olsen. Hill suffered from mental illness and was naked and apparently unarmed at the time of the incident. The incident was covered in local and national press and sparked the involvement of Black Lives Matter and other advocacy groups who demonstrated their support for Hill.
In January, a grand jury indicted officer Robert Olsen on two counts of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault. Olsen turned in his badge Monday.
Anthony Hill, a veteran of the United States Air Force who had served in Afghanistan, was 27 years old and, according to his family, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He had been medically discharged from the Air Force two years before after being diagnosed withbipolar disorder. On a Twitter account apparently belonging to Hill, he acknowledged suffering from the disorder. According to his girlfriend, he had recently stopped taking his medication, and it was not known whether he was still off of the medicine at the time of his shooting. Friends of Hill believed it was a reaction to his medication that prompted the erratic behavior on the day of the shooting.
Hill was noted to be acting erratically when police were called; he had jumped from his second-story balcony in his apartment complex, and his speech was not understandable. He had reportedly been running around the complex naked and knocking on doors and lying and crawling on the ground. The woman who called 911 told Hill’s family’s lawyer that she had called in order to get medical personnel to come for Hill.
Officer Robert Olsen, employed by the Dekalb County Police Department for seven years, was dispatched to the scene and found him in the parking lot of the complex. Olsen waited in his car for several minutes, possibly for backup, when Hill began approaching from about 180 feet away. Olsen exited the car and began moving backward. Hill, apparently unarmed, ran toward Officer Olsen, who stepped back and called to him to stop. When Hill charged Olsen and failed to comply with orders to stop, Olsen shot him twice. They were three to five feet apart when the shots were fired. Hill died there. Olsen had also been carrying a Taser and pepper spray, but DeKalb Police Chief Cedric Alexander said Olsen chose the firearm.
