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Two former Tybee Island police officers were indicted August 25 on charges of concealing the role of a non-certified jailer in connection with the May 21 Tasing of autistic teenager Clifford Grevemberg (pictured).
Chatham County grand jurors charged Travis Daniel, 25, and Timothy Sullivan, 36, with concealing the participation of Adam Thran in police reports involving the Tasing. The officers also are charged with falsely reporting to Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent John Barry that they were the only ones present during the events leading to the Tasing, the grand jury said.
Sullivan was indicted alone on a charge of falsely writing in the police report by omitting Thran from a portion of the report and saying Thran was called to the scene after EMS arrived and treated the victim.
Grevemberg was Tased by Tybee police while sitting on a curb outside the Rock House on the night of the annual Beach Bum Parade. He suffered a broken tooth and scrapes to his face and knees.
The 18-year-old was charged with disorderly conduct, but that charge was later dismissed.
His civil lawsuit against the city of Tybee remains pending in Chatham County State Court.
In the wake of the Grevemberg Tasing, GBI officials were called in to investigate the department's handling of the incident.
Daniel and Sullivan were suspended and resigned June 9. Thran resigned for "personal issues."
Police Cpl. Javier Valdes, the supervising officer in the case, also was suspended and later resigned. An attorney for Sullivan and Daniel contended both officers had followed the direction of their supervisor in the incident.
On the heels of the Grevemberg Tasing, Tybee Police Chief Jimmy Price was suspended with pay for what City Manager Diane Schleicher has called "personnel reasons." He remains suspended.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From the Savannah Morning News:
