Arch Enemy
The strange addiction of the Footstomper.
Written by Filed under Life
George Mitchell, better known in Nashville and Atlanta as The Footstomper.
These days, George Mitchell, now in his mid-fifties, is a self-professed loan shark, living a life (more or less) within the law. But back in his youth he was something more—a man who compulsively trampled on the feet of hundreds of unsuspecting young women, earning him the attention of the media and the nickname of “Footstomper.”
Between 1968 and 1985, Mitchell was arrested more than 40 times for assaulting women with his feet, almost all of the attacks taking place in Atlanta or Nashville. As a result, he spent 18 years in and out of various prisons, always returning to the streets to stomp again, sometimes within minutes of being released.
In 1985, the attacks abruptly and mysteriously came to an end despite the fact that neither the legal system of Georgia nor Tennessee had been willing or able to provide Mitchell with treatment for his seemingly compulsive disorder. It turns out that Mitchell had re-located to Florida, where, with the help of a new circle of friends, he managed to conquer his habit once and for all.
Long before George Mitchell was labeled as the “Footstomper,” he was simply known as “Kill.” In the new documentary film Injurious George—by Nashville television news anchorwoman Demetria Kalodimos—several of Mitchell’s childhood acquaintances recount how he earned that nickname by constantly shooting a stolen BB gun. Raised by a grandmother at the John Henry Haile housing project in North Nashville, he quit school early and mastered the art of shoplifting. As a teen-ager he moved on to stealing pocketbooks, and began employing a technique that hinted at his future compulsion. At some point, Mitchell discovered that slamming a brick or can of fruit down on a woman’s foot made for an effective purse snatching strategy.
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