HENRY COUNTY, Ga. — A Georgia grand jury indicted five police officers on murder charges Friday for the asphyxiation death of a concertgoer in 2019, according to reports.
The five police personnel confronted Fernando Rodriguez, 24, as he was walking naked along a road after attending the Imagine Concert Music Festival at the Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sept. 20, 2019, New York Post reported.
Officers deployed a Taser on Rodriguez and applied pressure to his back while handcuffing him, according to reports.
Officers are accused of tasing Rodriguez more than a dozen times during the encounter. He was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he later died, according to the charges against them.
Fernando Rodriguez (Image via WSB-TV)
The personnel named in the indictment are Henry County police officers Quinton Phillips and Robert Butera, and Hampton police officers Marcus Stroud, Mason Lewis, and Gregory Bowlden. They’ve each been charged with one count of malice murder, two counts of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault, officials announced Saturday, according to the Post.
Moreover, each officer will face one count of violating their oaths as law enforcement officers for “stretching Rodriguez out on the ground in a prone position while he was handcuffed and shackled, holding him down and applying pressure to his body,” the Henry County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Saturday.
Arrest warrants are pending, according the the DA’s office.
All three three Hampton officers have since resigned: Stroud on Oct. 16, 2019, and Bowlden and Lewis both on Aug. 5 of this year. The status of the county officers was unknown, NBC News reported.
Rodriguez’ family has also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Henry County, the City of Hampton and the five officers involved, according to WSB-TV. His family admits he was probably naked from being high on drugs during the confrontation with police.
A medical examiner determined Rodriguez died as the result of “asphyxiation due to physical restraint in prone position with compression of chest,” and concluded the manner of death was “homicide.” The toxicology details were not mentioned in the various news reports.
