Atlanta officer who shot teen was in another racially charged fight

By

Posted 5:14PM on Tuesday, July 23, 2002

ATLANTA - A police officer who shot and killed a black teenager earlier this month was accused of racial profiling in a separate violent incident nearly two years ago. Police said Officer Raymond Bunn, who is white, shot 18-year-old Corey Ward in self-defense July 14 because Ward was driving a Chevy Tahoe at the plainclothes officer and struck him. In September 2000, the same officer got into a fist fight with a 24-year-old black woman after stopping her because her car stereo was playing too loudly in Atlanta's Buckhead nightclub district. The woman, Ylia Lavender, suffered a broken eye socket. She said Bunn singled her out and beat her because she was black, but she never made a formal complaint to Atlanta police. Police reports say Lavender cursed at Bunn and attacked him, and he struck her in self-defense. A jury later acquitted Lavender on charges of battery and obstruction. An Atlanta civil rights activist, the Reverend Markel Hutchins, said ``This particular officer has a history and a pattern of excessive force, particularly as it relates to people of a darker hue.'' Atlanta police spokesman Sergeant John Quigley said the circumstances were different in each case. Hutchins and others called for the officer to be fired immediately. Police said Ward was helping another man escape after breaking into a vehicle and shattering its window. Four men and a juvenile, all black, were arrested and charged with entering an auto, criminal damage to property and obstruction to police. But Hutchins said the six never broke into the car and police never found fingerprints. Family members and friends said Ward tried to drive away because he didn't know Bunn was an officer and he was scared of a man brandishing a gun. Quigley said Bunn was placed on routine administrative leave for three days following Ward's shooting before returning to active duty.