Georgia College Student Recounts Aggressive Police Encounter While Shopping At The Mall
Armon Butler, a senior at Covenant College in Georgia, says he was rushed by officers when he was shopping for clothes at a mall on Thursday (August 6).
Butler says he was at the Town Center at Cobb for under 15 minutes before he was approached by a group of cops.
"When I saw the look on their faces, I knew that they were coming for me,” Butler described to 11Alive. “I just didn’t know what the problem was. And then one of them said give me your id.”
The student says he was then handcuffed and detained without being told why.
"They never read me my rights,” he said. “They never told me why I was being handcuffed until we got outside.”
Once he got to the police station, Butler says an officer told him he matched the description of a suspect.
Cherly Butler, Armon’s mother, says she dropped her son off at the mall and drove down the street to run an errand. In the midst of that, she got a call from Armon explaining what happened.
"I turn to pull into the mall and the visual of seeing my son surrounded by cops outside of the mall, it’s not a visual you ever want to see," Cheryl said to the news station.
The Cobb County Police Department says they detained Butler until it was confirmed he was not the suspect. Armon, on the other hand, claims he received no apology or explanation for the way he was treated.
“It’s not that they were doing their job, I get they’re trying to find a person who was armed,” he said. “It’s the fact that they ran into someone like myself who try to deescalate the situation, who didn’t disrespect them, who didn’t fight them when they pinned me up – grabbed me – and forced me into handcuffs. I did everything by the book, and I still got treated like I’m a criminal.”
Both Armon and his mother say they’ve been in contact with the Cobb County Police Department and hope to set up a meeting with the chief of police so a situation like this doesn’t happen again.
Watch the news clip below:
