A man who was paralyzed after a police officer chased and used a Taser on him while he was panhandling won a $100 million lawsuit in Georgia, according to his lawyer.

Jerry Blasingame first filed the lawsuit against the city of Atlanta and Atlanta police officer Jon Grubbs in 2019, accusing Grubbs of using excessive force that caused Blasingame to become quadriplegic, according to one of his lawyers, Darren Tobin.

Members of the jury, who deliberated for just under eight hours in federal court in Atlanta, handed down their verdict that awarded Blasingame punitive and compensatory damages on Aug. 26.

The incident occurred on July 10, 2018, when Grubbs saw then-65-year-old Blasingame asking for money on the side of a highway south of downtown Atlanta and told him to stop, according to the complaint.

Grubbs pulled over, got out of his car and ran over to Blasingame, who had moved out of the street and into a wooded area behind a guardrail.

Grubbs then stunned Blasingame with his Taser from behind while the man was on an “uneven surface,” the complaint says.

Blasingame fell and was “bleeding profusely from his head.” He had hit his head on the concrete pad of a traffic control box, snapping his cervical spine and paralyzing him, his lawyer wrote in an email.

Grubbs turned off his body camera at some point during the incident, causing the prior two minutes of recorded footage to be erased, Tobin wrote.

About a month later, Grubbs visited Blasingame in the hospital where he was being treated and charged him with “pedestrian solicit on roadway and obstruction of police,” both misdemeanor crimes, according to Tobin.

A spokesman for the City of Atlanta declined to comment on pending litigation.

The Atlanta Police Department and Grubbs’s lawyer, Staci Miller, of the City of Atlanta Law Department, did not respond to requests for comment.

Miller told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that Atlanta Police Department policy doesn’t prohibit an officer from using a Taser in situation where the officer, bystander or the person being tased could be in danger. Blasingame’s injury happened because of a series of actions and was not the direct result of the officer using his Taser, according to Miller.

“We cannot start from the consequence,” she told the outlet. “We have to start from the action, the totality of the situation.”

Grubbs was placed on administrative leave after the tasing incident but was later reinstated, according to Tobin and the Journal-Constitution.

Blasingame now lives in a long-term care facility and requires “around the clock specialized medical care,” according to his lawyers. He could not attend the trial because he is attached to a tracheotomy machine.

His medical care has already cost about $4 million, and his future expenses are projected to be at least $14 million, according to Tobin.

The jury awarded Blasingame $40 million against Grubbs — $20 million for compensatory damages and $20 million for punitive damages — and $60 million against the city for compensatory damages, but Tobin said it could still be a long time before Blasingame sees any of the money.

“We feel very confident in our position, but I think the appeals process could take years,” he told McClatchy News. “Unfortunately. the wheels of justice will continue to turn slowly.”

Another attorney who represented Blasingame, Ven Johnson, said in a statement that Blasingame should not have been treated differently because he was homeless.

“Jerry is a United States citizen just like every one of us,” Johnson said in a statement sent to McClatchy News by Tobin. “Just because he is homeless does not deprive him of the same constitutional rights that every one of us is afforded.”

Tobin said that despite his medical condition, Blasingame has remained positive throughout the process.

“He feels like there’s some light at the end of the tunnel,” Tobin said, “but he’s never going to recover from his physical injuries, ever.”