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Tory Brown

Age : 22

Gender : Male

Race : Black

Date : 08/24/2021

Location : 2135 Godby Road, Building 33, Apartment 502, Chelsea Gardens Apartments

City : College Park

County : Fulton

State : Georgia

Agency : Clayton County Sheriff’s Office

Officer(s) :David Hidalgo

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during execution of probation-violation warrant

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/24/2021, Clayton County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. David Hidalgo killed 22-year-old Tory Brown inside an apartment at 2135 Godby Road, Building 33, Apartment 502, in College Park. Although Clayton County deputies carried out the operation, the apartment is in Fulton County. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation initially withheld the shooting deputy’s name, but a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed by Brown’s mother later identified Hidalgo as the deputy who fired the fatal shot.
The later federal court record provides considerably more information than was available immediately after Brown’s death. On 08/23/2021, Brown’s grandmother contacted the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office and reported allegations that Brown had threatened family members. Investigators also determined that a probation-violation warrant was outstanding for Brown. The following day, police learned Brown was staying at his girlfriend’s apartment at Chelsea Gardens and assigned the sheriff’s Fugitive Unit to arrest him. Sgt. Hidalgo was among the deputies assigned to the operation. These allegations formed part of the information provided to the Fugitive Unit before deputies went to the apartment.
Hidalgo approached the apartment with Investigator Sophal Vong and investigators identified in the later court record as Kelly and Ahmad. Deputies surrounded the apartment and called for Brown to come outside for approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Two women and a child eventually left the apartment. According to the evidence Hidalgo subsequently presented in federal court, one of the women told deputies that Brown had a weapon inside.
Brown remained inside. Deputies could see portions of the darkened apartment from the doorway and used weapon-mounted lights. Other deputies positioned outside reported seeing Brown through a bedroom window. According to Hidalgo's subsequent account, officers saw Brown moving between the bedroom and living room and believed he was searching through a closet. Hidalgo said this caused him to believe Brown might be retrieving a firearm.
Hidalgo subsequently alleged that Brown suddenly moved into the living-room area in a crouched position, angled toward the deputies, with his right arm positioned where Hidalgo could not see his hand. Hidalgo said he believed Brown was holding a firearm and was about to shoot. Hidalgo fired one rifle round, striking Brown in the neck and killing him. No firearm was subsequently found on Brown or elsewhere inside the apartment. The fact that Brown was unarmed became a central issue in his family's challenge to the shooting.
Brown's family disputed the police account from the beginning. Antoinette Martin, whose daughter was Brown's girlfriend and whose apartment deputies entered, said deputies had been searching for Brown earlier that day and described aggressive conduct by officers while questioning the family. Martin said that when deputies later arrived at the apartment, they forced their way inside. She disputed that Brown posed a threat justifying deadly force. Brown's mother, Paula Thomas, likewise rejected the official account and publicly demanded accountability for her son's death.
The GBI investigated the killing and announced that its completed investigative file would be forwarded to the Fulton County District Attorney's Office. The case then remained unresolved publicly for an unusually long period. In April 2023, nearly two years after Brown was killed, Thomas and attorney Reginald Greene went to the Fulton County courthouse seeking an explanation. Thomas said she believed her son had been murdered. Greene emphasized that Brown had been unarmed and said the family had been unable to obtain the officers' names, body-camera recordings, incident reports and other evidence needed to pursue its civil case. According to Greene, prosecutors attributed the delay to a backlog of more than 100 police-use-of-force cases awaiting review.
On 08/18/2023, Thomas, acting as administrator of Brown's estate, filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against Hidalgo in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The lawsuit alleged excessive force under 42 U.S.C. §1983 as well as assault and battery, wrongful death and negligence or gross negligence under Georgia law. The complaint alleged that Brown did not pose a threat to Hidalgo or anyone else when Hidalgo killed him. Thomas sought compensatory and punitive damages.
The litigation ultimately produced a much more detailed reconstruction of the shooting but ended unsuccessfully for Brown's family. Hidalgo moved for summary judgment, and Thomas did not file an opposition to that motion. The federal court therefore treated Hidalgo's properly supported factual assertions as undisputed for purposes of deciding the motion, while still independently reviewing whether his evidence legally supported judgment in his favor.
On 11/19/2025, U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. granted Hidalgo summary judgment. The court concluded that Hidalgo was entitled to qualified immunity on the federal excessive-force claim and official immunity on the state claims. Significantly, the court expressly acknowledged that Brown turned out to be unarmed, but concluded that the issue for qualified-immunity purposes was whether Hidalgo reasonably could have believed Brown was armed and presented an immediate threat based upon the information available to him at the time. The ruling dismissed the case and entered judgment for Hidalgo.
The 2025 ruling also confirms that Hidalgo was not criminally prosecuted for killing Brown. Thus, by the end of 2025, both potential avenues of accountability had closed: prosecutors had brought no criminal case, and Brown's federal civil-rights case had been dismissed on summary judgment.
Brown's mother remained his most persistent public advocate. In 2023, after waiting almost two years for the prosecutorial review, Thomas said she would continue pressing officials for answers and justice. The family's position consistently emphasized a fact that was eventually undisputed in federal court: whatever Hidalgo believed when he pulled the trigger, Tory Brown did not actually have a gun when Hidalgo killed him.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://gbi.georgia.gov/node/24486
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/clayton-county/gbi-investigating-shooting-involving-clayton-county-sheriffs-office/3ONDSWJF5JFBXC3BUZOHWZWT74/
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/godby-road-officer-involved-shooting-college-park
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/fulton-county/mother-says-backlog-is-causing-delay-getting-answers-after-her-son-was-killed-by-clayton-deputies/YDJA5AQJBNFAPMFYWC7G4Q5XGE/
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-gand-1_23-cv-03700/pdf/USCOURTS-gand-1_23-cv-03700-0.pdf
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/georgia/gandce/1%3A2023cv03700/319430/28/
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/georgia/gandce/1%3A2023cv03700/319430