U.S. Marshal, Policeman Indicted In Deadly 2016 Shooting

ATLANTA —A pair of Atlanta area law enforcement officers were charged with murder Tuesday in the 2016 shooting death of a Tuskegee University student.

Jamarion Robinson was shot 76 times during an August 2016 encounter with police and law enforcement attempting to arrest him, according to reports.

Eric A. Heinze with the U.S. Marshals and Kristopher L. Hutchens, a Clayton County Police officer assigned to the U.S. Marshals fugitive task force at the time of the shooting, were both indicted by a Fulton County grand jury on charges of felony murder — causing a person’s death while committing a felony — aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, first-degree burglary, making false statements, and violation of oath, according to court records obtained by Patch.

Heinze, the assistant chief inspector with the U.S. Marshal’s southeast fugitive task force, and Hutchens were among more than a dozen heavily armed police officers who descended on an East Point apartment on August 5, 2016, to serve an arrest warrant to the 26-year-old Robinson, according to WAGA Fox5 News.

Fox5 reported that when officers arrived, claims gunfire erupted from inside the apartment were reported, but a video purporting to show the initial shots has since been removed from the social media. Officers began shooting.

However, the indictment says that Heinze and Hutchens lied to a Georgia Bureau of Investigations agent probing the circumstances of the deadly officer-involved shooting and that they illegally entered the apartment of Robinson’s girlfriend, Dartangyla White.

Robinson’s mother Monteria Robinson filed a federal lawsuit in 2018 against Hutchens, Heinze and eight other law enforcement members from different agencies who were members of the task force, claiming that they used excessive force, violated her son’s civil rights, and tried to cover up the incident, according to court records obtained by Patch.

The case was terminated in March but has been appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals.