On January 22, 2019, 26-year veteran Atlanta Police Officer Sung H. Kim, also a deputized member of the FBI’s Atlanta Violent Crime Task Force, joined a team attempting to arrest Jimmy Atchison on an armed robbery warrant. According to court documents, Atchison fled from officers, first jumping from a window and then running through a northwest Atlanta apartment complex before entering an apartment and hiding inside a closet beneath a pile of clothes.
Officers, with the resident’s permission, entered the unit. Officer Kim ordered Atchison to show his hands. When Atchison made what Kim described as a sudden movement toward his face and chest, the officer fired a single shot, killing him. Investigators later determined Atchison was unarmed. Officer Kim stated he believed Atchison was about to shoot him. A use-of-force expert agreed that Atchison’s motions constituted a “deadly force stimulus.”
Woke, anti-police Fulton County prosecutors charged Officer Kim with murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, and other crimes. Officer Kim retired and began a multi-year nightmare.
This week, U.S. District Judge Michael L. Brown lowered the gavel in Atlanta and obliterated every count, felony murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, and oath-of-office violations that Fulton County’s grand jury had hurled at former Officer Sung H. Kim. He did more than vindicate a 26-year veteran cop. He exposed the reckless zeal of a prosecutorial movement that has turned America’s guardians into political quarry. Brown’s opinion was scorching: “The evidence for self-defense is so overwhelming it is hard to understand how Georgia could have brought these charges in the first place.” Judge Brown’s ruling can be read here.
Yet for Kim, years of limbo, legal bills, headlines branding him a killer, and the hovering threat of life in prison cannot be erased by a judge’s pen. The damage is done, to him, to morale in embattled police ranks, and to every citizen who prays that men and women in blue will still sprint toward danger when seconds matter.
Enter the Police Officer Self-Defense Protection Act (the Act), is a proposed federal statute drafted by the National Police Association and allied pro-law-enforcement groups. Its premise is plain, its necessity urgent: When an officer’s use of force meets the objectively reasonable standard of self-defense, local prosecutors steeped in ideology or politics should not be allowed to weaponize criminal indictments. If a clearly defined set of self-defense criteria is met, credible threat of death or grave bodily harm, proportional use of force is pre-empted from state court criminal charges unless the U.S. Department of Justice certifies that prosecution is warranted. In short, it grants the Supremacy Clause shield that Congress gives federal task-force officers like Kim to all local law enforcement officers. The Act can be read here.
Officer Kim is hardly alone. In 2020, Atlanta Officer Garrett Rolfe was charged with felony murder after the fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks amid a violent Taser-armed struggle. A special prosecutor later dropped every charge, admitting the encounter was “objectively reasonable.”
Former Atlanta Officer Oliver Simmonds spent three years under a murder indictment for shooting a teenage carjacker while off duty; a jury cleared him in 2023, yet the ordeal gutted an officer’s career.
These sagas bear the same hallmarks: public fury fanned by anti-police activists, district attorneys thirsty for headlines, and evidence that ultimately collapsed under neutral scrutiny. But the officers paid the price in sleepless nights, drained pensions, and tarnished names. Justice delayed becomes justice denied when your very freedom hangs in the balance.
And Atlanta is hardly the only jurisdiction with anti-police prosecutors.
In 1968, Richard Nixon campaigned on restoring order when cities burned. Today, the arsonists wear tailored suits and occupy prosecutors’ offices funded by billionaire ideologues. The Police Officer Self-Defense Protection Act is Congress’s chance to draw a constitutional line in the sand. Pass it, and we tell every street cop from Atlanta to Anchorage: “If you act in good faith to protect us, America will protect you.” Reject it, and we invite the continued slow disintegration of lawful authority, one wrongful politicized prosecution at a time.
Officer Kim walked out of court a free man, but only after slogging through a judicial minefield no honorable public servant should face. Let his vindication be the last postscript in this tragic chapter. The Republic owes her sentinels better. We need the Police Officer Self-Defense Protection Act now, not for the sake of police alone, but for the safety and liberty of every law-abiding American who depends on them.
