Name:
Custis, Shannon Monique
Date of Booking:
08/30/2023
Reason(s) For Booking:
OBSTRUCTION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER WHEN ENGAGED ON OFFICIAL DUTY WHICH RESULTS IN SERIOUS PHYSICAL HARM OR INJURY TO SUCH OFFICER (FELONY)
SIMPLE ASSAULT
SIMPLE BATTERY
SIMPLE BATTERY AGAINST POLICE OFFICER/LE DOG/CORRECTIONS OR DETENTION OFFICER
PROBATION VIOLATION – FELONY
Officer’s Narrative:
[Please note: The following is a direct transcription from the official initial incident report. The Georgia Gazette does not fix any spelling or grammatical errors that may exist. Any changes or redactions made by our staff are placed inside brackets. Some errors may exist. All subjects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The topics discussed may be sensitive to some readers. Discretion is advised.]
On August 29th, 2023, at around 2:00 pm, I was dispatched to [1900 BLOCK] Atlanta Highway regarding a medical call. The caller, Shannon Custis, had cut open her right arm after punching out one of her windows. While on the way to the call, I discovered Custis had an active felony probation warrant for her arrest. When I arrived, Custis was sitting on the steps in front of her house being treated by a first responder for superficial cuts on her right hand /wrist. The window on the front door was broken out. I spoke with the witness, who told me that he is Custis’ landscaper, and he had stopped by to collect payment for a job he had performed for Custis. When he arrived, Custis was sitting out front with a cut on her hand. There was no one else home, and they did not see anything suspicious.
Custis refused medical transport to the hospital by National EMS paramedics after they wrapped up her injuries. Custis told me that she had come home from the hospital but didn’t have her keys. She heard her dogs barking inside and wanted to get inside, so she knocked out a glass window on her door to reach the door lock. She confirmed no one else was involved, and she broke her own window to gain access to her house. I told Custis about her warrant and placed her under arrest. I detained her in handcuffs and escorted her to my patrol car. At the patrol car, I searched her incident to arrest and had her sit in the backseat of my patrol car.
After sitting down, Custis threw her head forward into the metal partition that separates the front and back seats of my patrol car. She was able to do this multiple times before I could push her over onto her side. She continued banging her head and opened a 4-inch laceration across the top of her left eyebrow. Custis’ injury immediately began bleeding and blood covered the backseat of my patrol car.
I was holding Custis’ head to prevent her from continuing to injure herself. Custis did not respond to me and was acting as if she was unconscious. Deputy Mines requested National EMS paramedics respond back to the scene with urgency. I pulled Custis from the patrol car and I laid her down in the grass in the recovery position. I could see she was breathing, but she refused to respond to me. When paramedics arrived back at the scene, they confirmed that Custis was pretending to be unconscious. They stated her eyes were still moving under her eyelids and she reacted to their touch. I released Custis from the handcuffs, and she continued to not respond to paramedics.
We lifted Custis onto the gurney, and they strapped her into it. Custis was transferred into the back of the National EMS ambulance. Due to Custis being in custody when she injured herself, I decided to follow the ambulance to the hospital to provide a report to the emergency room physician and request that she have mental evaluation. The male paramedic was driving the ambulance while the female paramedic was in the back with Custis. While driving to the hospital, the ambulance turned on its overhead emergency lights and stopped on Atlanta Highway near Dozer Drive. I stopped behind the ambulance and the driver got out. He told me there was an issue in the back and when he opened the rear doors of the ambulance, I could see Custis was fighting with the female paramedic.
I entered the ambulance and assisted paramedics with restraining Custis. Custis refused to give the paramedics her hands, she was screaming, and demanding to call her husband. The male paramedics refused telling Custis that she had hurt his partner. The paramedics were attempting to restrain Custis, but she refused to cooperate. She was moving her hands around, trying to pull them together, and moving them away from us. Custis was still wrapped up in the gurney’s safety belts. Custis accused me of being an evil white supremacist, and she accused me of belonging to the clan (KKK). I grabbed Custis’ left arm, turned her onto her right side and pinned her left arm behind her back in a control hold while paramedics were attempting to secure Custis’ right arm in the gurney restraints. Custis was able to rip the cloth gurney restraints in half. Custis was screaming about us taking her to the hospital.
I continued to restrain Custis while paramedics were preparing a sedative for Custis. Custis claimed that she would report us to the hospital that we fondled her. Custis demanded that I get off her and when I refused, she began to spit at me and the paramedics in the ambulance. I was able to hold her in a position which did not allow Custis spit to make contact with us. After seeing her spit was not effective, she then began reaching back with her right arm that was still free. She had long nails which she used to scratch my right forearm. My forearm had a week-old cut on it which was healing and when Custis scratched me she broke open the cut on my arm. The hand Custis scratched me with was the same one she had injured earlier that had her blood on it. I was able to adjust my arm away from her while continuing to pin her to the gurney.
Due to me using both of my arms to pin Custis, I had the female paramedic retrieve my handcuffs from my belt and I detained Custis in handcuffs while Custis continued screaming. Deputy Mines arrived, and he used a pair of leg shackles to secure Custis’ legs. Custis was given a sedative by the male paramedic and the male paramedic was able to put a surgical mask on Custis to prevent her from continuing to try to spit on us. We turned Custis over, and she was again secured to the gurney. Paramedics felt comfortable continuing to transport Custis to the hospital now that Custis had been secured.
I followed the ambulance to Saint Mary’s Healthcare System Emergency Room. Custis was turned over to hospital staff where she was admitted into the mental ward. I gave a verbal report to the attending emergency room physician, and she admitted Custis for a mental health evaluation. I spoke with the paramedics at the hospital. They told me while they were driving down the road, Custis became upset and started grabbing sharp objects inside the back of the ambulance. Custis tried to pull out the heart monitor and tried to reach into a cabinet to get scissors.
The female paramedics was holding the cabinet door shut to prevent Custis from gaining access to the scissors. Custis used her nails to scratch the female paramedic’s right forearm. This caused minor redness and swelling to the female paramedics’ arm. These scratches did not break that skin of the female paramedic. I took photographs of the paramedics’ arm injuries and my forearm at the hospital. Due to this incident involving Custis’ bloody hand and the exposure after the skin was ripped on my forearm, I am undergoing a six-month testing for communicable diseases that could have transferred from Custis. I later obtained warrants from the Magistrate Judge for felony obstruction with violence, simple battery on law enforcement, simple assault against the paramedics and myself and simple battery against the female paramedic.
[End of Narrative]