Judge dismisses murder charges against Atlanta officer in 2019 shooting of unarmed man in closet

A federal judge has thrown out murder charges against a former Atlanta police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man hiding in a closet.

U.S. District Judge Michael Brown ruled Tuesday that Sung Kim, a 26-year veteran of the Atlanta police department, acted in self defense and shouldn’t face charges in the 2019 killing of 21-year-old Jimmy Atchison.

“The evidence for self-defense is so overwhelming it is hard to understand how Georgia could have brought these charges in the first place, much less continued with them over the two-and-a-half years since,” Brown wrote in his ruling. “Defendant’s shooting of Mr. Atchison was textbook self-defense.”