A Clayton County deputy was fired less than a day after she held a gun to a handcuffed man’s head.

It’s the second time in under a month that a Clayton County deputy has been terminated for excessive force during an arrest.

The Clayton County Sheriff’s Office says in a news release that on Tuesday night, Deputy Nicole Pitts was taking a handcuffed man into custody. He was cuffed behind his back, and was refusing to get into the patrol car to be transported to jail.

“Deputy Pitts pulled out her issued sidearm and held it to the suspect’s head under his chin to get him to comply,” the sheriff’s office said.

Vince Velazquez, a retired Atlanta Police detective, called the deputy’s actions “egregious.”

“This deputy removes her service weapon and places it under this person’s chin. That’s not just improper. That’s not just against policy. That’s against the law,” Velazquez says. “That’s an aggravated assault.”

He contends actions like this all come down to training, as well as what can be observed in officers' backgrounds, temperaments, and psychological exams.

“The only reason I can think of that this deputy did that is to scare the hell out of this guy into compliance,” says Velazquez. “We’re not trained that way. Police officers are not trained to scare people into compliance. Our level of force has to be reasonable and necessary to combat whatever force is being used against us.”

The retired detective admits he is baffled and cannot think of why any law enforcement officer would use the threat of death to get someone to step into a car.

“That’s what this is really about: ‘If you don’t do what I tell you to do or stop doing what you’re doing, I’m going to kill you.’ I can’t think of anyone who has a gun pointed at them under their chin, to their face, on their head, would think that ‘That’s not a threat to kill me.’”

He added that he can see the possibility of criminal charges.

“If a civilian did that to another civilian, that civilian would be charged with aggravated assault,” Velazquez says. “I’d be very surprised if this is not presented to the grand jury for an indictment.”

Another deputy on the scene with Pitts reported her actions to his supervisor, who alerted Sheriff Victor Hill.

“The Sheriff called in Internal Affairs who worked into the middle of the night conducting the investigation. Pitts was placed on administrative leave without pay last night. Pitts was terminated from the Sheriff’s Office late this afternoon on orders of Sheriff Victor Hill,” states the release.

Velazquez applauds the deputy who called attention to the incident, and the sheriff’s department for conducting a swift investigation and taking action.

"This is a great example of officers understanding that this isn’t about this “blue wall of silence. Those days are over,” he says.  "We can’t expect the citizens to hold us accountable if we’re not holding ourselves accountable.  “He should be commended. He should receive a recommendation for an award and be the example of what the right thing is to do when you see an officer doing something wrong.”

This is the third Clayton County deputy to be fired since last month. Clayton County corrections officer Gregory Hubert Brown was fired after Hill said he called an inmate suffering a mental health crisis a “crazy N-word” in front of other inmates and another corrections officer. In September, officer Brandon Myers was fired after a now-viral video showed him pinning a man to the ground and punching him repeatedly. Myers was in the process of arresting Roderick Walker, who was the passenger in a car that was pulled over for a broken tail light. A confrontation broke out between Walker and deputies after he refused to show identification.

Velazquez is currently filming the next season of TVOne’s “ATL Homicide,” a series which re-enacts some of the most fascinating cases he and now-retired APD partner Det. David Quinn investigated on the job.

Cox Media Group