When an Officer Goes to Help and Doesn’t Come Home
We represent the family of a 25-year-old Gwinnett County police officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty, and the family of the second officer who was seriously wounded. We also stand ready to help the wounded officer and his family in the days, months, and years ahead. If you are reading this because a loved one in a badge was lost or hurt at a hotel on February 1, 2026, we want you to know what the law actually allows you to do, what the hotel that hosted the encounter is already doing, and how quickly the proof in this case starts to disappear.
On the morning of February 1, 2026, Gwinnett County Police Officer Pradeep Tamang, age 25, and a fellow officer responded to a report that someone had used a fraudulent credit card at a hotel near Stone Mountain, about 25 miles northeast of Atlanta. The front desk clerk directed the two officers to the specific room of the person suspected of the fraud. The suspect invited the officers into the room. The encounter became a shootout. Officer Tamang was fatally wounded. The second officer was seriously injured. The suspect was also shot and remains in custody under medical care, expected to survive. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is leading the criminal investigation into the use of force and the underlying conduct.
The criminal case will play out on its own track. The civil case, the one that holds the hotel, the security contractor, and the property owner accountable for the conditions that put two officers in a confined space with a man who had a gun, has to start now. The proof that wins or loses that case, hotel surveillance video, key-card access logs, the front desk clerk’s own knowledge, prior incident reports at the same property, begins to disappear within weeks. This page is built to tell the families, the second officer, and the wider law-enforcement family what Georgia law gives them and what the next 72 hours demand.
Why the Hotel Is on the Hook Even Though It Did Not Pull the Trigger
Georgia premises liability law imposes on the operator of a business open to the public, including a hotel, the duty to exercise ordinary care to keep the premises safe. That duty runs to police officers in the lawful performance of their duties just as it runs to paying guests. The duty is breached when the hotel knew, or in the exercise of ordinary care should have known, of a dangerous condition and failed to take reasonable steps to address it. The legal standard is articulated at O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1, which requires owners and occupiers of land to exercise ordinary care to keep the premises safe.
“Where an owner or occupier of land, by exercise of ordinary care, could have discovered that an invitee on the land was in danger because of a dangerous condition of the land, the owner or occupier is liable for injury to the invitee caused by the dangerous condition if the owner or occupier failed to exercise ordinary care to protect the invitee from the danger.”
— O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1 (paraphrased; verify exact text at time of filing).
The shooter’s conduct does not break the chain between the hotel’s failure and the officers’ injuries. The Georgia Supreme Court has long recognized that the duty to keep premises safe is not excused simply because the actual harm was inflicted by a third party. Where the intervening criminal act was reasonably foreseeable, the hotel’s prior failure to take protective measures can be a direct cause of the harm.
The hotel’s specific failures in this case center on what its front desk clerk did, and did not do, when the two officers came to the door. The clerk directed the officers to a specific room. The clerk had access to prior-incident reports, prior 911 calls for service at the property, and the rental history of the room. If the clerk knew, or should have known, that the guest had a history of fraud complaints, weapons-related calls, or other risk indicators and did not share that information with the officers, the hotel’s negligence runs directly into the line of causation. The hotel’s “we just rented a room” defense is not available where its own employee actively guided the officers to the door.
The hotel also had constructive knowledge duties beyond the front desk. Hotels maintain electronic key-card systems, property management systems, and incident logs. Each of these records can be used at trial to prove what the hotel actually knew, when it knew it, and what it did or did not do about it.
What Must Be Preserved and How Fast It Disappears
In a hotel-shooting case, the records that decide liability are also the records that the hotel is most motivated to overwrite. Below is the evidence map and its clock.
Hotel surveillance video. Most hotels retain surveillance on a rolling 30-day loop, some shorter, occasionally longer for high-risk footage. The video of the officers arriving at the front desk, the interaction with the clerk, the clerk pointing to the room, and the officers approaching the room is the single most decisive piece of evidence. It must be preserved by a written litigation hold today, not next month.
Property management system records. Every hotel runs a PMS that tracks guest reservations, payment method, length of stay, room changes, key-card activations, and incident notes. The PMS is the documentary spine of constructive knowledge. PMS data retention is governed by the hotel’s internal policy and state tax recordkeeping requirements, not a single uniform federal rule, and PMS records can be archived or purged on a 30-to-90-day cycle.
Key-card access logs. Each tap of a room key generates a timestamped record. A history of who entered and exited the suspect’s room, and when, can corroborate a pattern of activity that the hotel should have flagged. Key-card logs are part of the PMS and die with it.
Front desk records and witness identification. The clerk who directed the officers to the room is a critical witness. The clerk’s training file, prior-incident log entries the clerk made, and the clerk’s own recollection are evidence. Hotel employee turnover in this sector is high, and memories degrade. The clerk may be contacted, reassigned, or leave employment within weeks.
Prior incident reports and 911 calls for service. A history of fraud complaints, police calls, weapons incidents, or violent episodes at the same property establishes the foreseeability backbone of negligent security. These records are obtained through open-records requests to the responding law enforcement agencies, and they can take weeks to assemble.
Shooter-related records. The shooter’s prior interactions with the property, prior fraud complaints, prior contacts with law enforcement, and any prior stays at the same or related properties are part of the proof that the danger was knowable.
The officers’ own department records. The Gwinnett County Police Department’s records regarding the call, the dispatch, the response, and the incident itself are public records under the Georgia Open Records Act, O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70 et seq., and will be available through a properly framed request.
The litigation hold letter that freezes all of the above has to go out within days. It has to name the hotel, the management company, the property owner, the security contractor, and the franchisor if the property is branded. It has to demand preservation of video, PMS, key-card, housekeeping, and incident records, and it has to demand that the hotel identify the front desk clerk and preserve that employee’s training and personnel file. The longer the letter waits, the more evidence disappears legally.
What a Case Like This Is Worth
We do not promise results. We do not guarantee outcomes. We commit to a full investigation, a complete damages model, and a trial posture that forces the defendants to face the jury.
Based on our review of similar hotel-shooting and negligent-security cases, and the specific facts of this incident, a realistic range of the case value is $5,000,000 to $25,000,000, subject to the proof we develop. The floor of that range is set by the wrongful death of a young officer killed in the line of duty and the catastrophic injury of the second officer. The ceiling of that range is set by the proof of the hotel’s prior knowledge, the security contractor’s failures, and the coverage available across the multiple defendants.
The damages model has two large parts. The economic damages include the officer’s projected 30-plus years of career earnings, the lost pension and benefits, the lost health insurance, and the lost household services the officer would have provided. The non-economic damages under Georgia’s full-value-of-the-life standard include the loss of companionship, the loss of the relationship, the grief of the surviving family members, and the loss of the officer’s life itself. In a line-of-duty death, juries have shown a willingness to return substantial non-economic awards. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
A second officer’s catastrophic-injury case is built on a different damages architecture, the cost of future medical care, the cost of vocational rehabilitation, the lost earning capacity of a career that is interrupted, the pain and suffering, and the permanent impairment. A catastrophic-injury case for a young officer in the line of duty is a seven-figure case at minimum and can reach into the eight-figure range depending on the nature and permanence of the injuries.
How We Build This Case
We work with a security expert to testify on the industry standard for hotel-police interaction. The argument at trial is that the hotel clerk should have been trained to identify and communicate high-risk indicators to responding officers, and the failure to do so is a direct breach of that standard.
We retain a forensic economist to model the officer’s projected career earnings, lost pension, lost benefits, and lost household services. Georgia’s full-value-of-the-life standard requires a careful accounting of what this officer’s life was worth in dollars, and that accounting has to be bulletproof.
We preserve the records. We depose the front desk clerk, the hotel general manager, the security contractor’s supervisors, and the property owner’s representatives. We demand the prior-incident history, the training records, the PMS data, and the surveillance video. We retain local Georgia counsel where required and move the case in the appropriate Georgia state or federal court.
Our work is contingency-based. We don’t get paid unless we win your case. We offer a free consultation, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a real attorney on the line, not an answering service.
The First 72 Hours
If you are the family of Officer Tamang, the wounded officer, or a member of the law-enforcement community who was affected by this event, here is what the next 72 hours should look like.
Hour 1 to Hour 12. Do not give a recorded statement to the hotel, its insurer, its investigator, or anyone who calls on their behalf. Forward any such call to us. Begin assembling what you have. Save every text, every voicemail, every email, every photo.
Hour 12 to Hour 48. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. We will open the file, take the call in English or in Spanish, and start the preservation work that same day. The litigation hold letter to the hotel, the management company, the security contractor, the property owner, and the franchisor goes out within hours of the call.
Hour 48 to Hour 72. We open the public-records requests to the Gwinnett County Police Department and any responding agency. We request the GBI’s investigative report timeline and the CAD records for the property. We begin the witness identification and the document preservation.
Beyond Hour 72. We file the civil complaint. We depose the front desk clerk before memory degrades. We retain the experts. We prepare the case for trial while continuing to negotiate in good faith.
What Comes Next
We are ready to begin. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. The complaint is filed when the evidence is in hand. The case is tried when the defense refuses to do what is right. Every step is taken with one purpose: to hold the people whose decisions placed a 25-year-old officer in a hotel room with a man who had a gun accountable for what happened next, and to return to a family that lost someone irreplaceable the resources they need to rebuild a life that has been permanently altered.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 right now. The line is answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by a real person who will connect you with an attorney. Your first call is free, confidential, and carries no obligation. We serve families across Georgia, including families in Gwinnett County, Lawrenceville, and the surrounding communities of metro Atlanta. Hablamos Español. We will work your case with the urgency, the precision, and the personal commitment it deserves.
If you want to understand more about how we approach these cases, read about our work in wrongful death claims and brain injuries, and about our broader law practice areas. For guidance on what to do in the first days after a catastrophic injury, our YouTube guide on the parents’ guide to child injury lawsuits walks through the same preservation principles. To get in touch directly, visit our contact page.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is built from the ground up. The families we represent deserve a fight, and that is what we bring.