Mychiska Patterson

How they died

Deadly force

Twenty-eight-year-old Dean Ricketts was acting out scenarios he learned in training. A single gunshot killed Patterson, a jailer who had worked for the Fulton County sheriff's department for two years. Atlanta police say Ricketts had removed the magazine from the .40-caliber Glock pistol he was using in the role-playing game, but a bullet remained in the chamber. Ricketts--as a detention officer--was not authorized to carry a firearm, and the gun was not sheriff's department property, police said.

Why we remember them

This record exists so that Mychiska Patterson, and all who are named in this archive, are never reduced to a number.

References & sources