After cops were found guilty, hundreds whom they helped convict are forgotten
In 2020 Glynn County became part of Georgia’s conversation about racial injustice after Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by three white vigilantes and local police officers dismissed the hate crime as a justified shooting. Lost in the waves of anger and outrage about this tragedy, a separate police scandal still festers.
Ten months earlier, the county’s elite anti-drugs police unit — Glynn Brunswick Narcotics Enforcement Team — was under scrutiny. A judge had ordered an index of cases based on police work of five officers after hearing court testimony that unit members were using drugs and having sex with informants, as well as violating other police policies. By that summer, GBNET had been disbanded, and those officers declared tainted witnesses. The Brunswick-area district attorney, Jackie Johnson, had created lists of approximately 450 people whose cases might be affected by misconduct.
Since then, three GBNET officers have pleaded guilty. The former county police chief and his chief of staff, both under indictment, are fighting allegations that they covered up those illegal acts. Separately, the former district attorney is awaiting trial, too.
Yet a 15-month investigation by The Current shows that the lists of cases that may have been compromised by police wrongdoing have been forgotten. Hundreds of defendants were never informed about their opportunity for legal relief.
The Current found more than 50 cases that could qualify for review or dismissal from informant involvement, the tainted officers, and a drug sale.
fast-tracking injustice
In Brunswick, drug cops were convicted. A prosecutor was indicted. But hundreds of people caught in their maw are forgotten.
GBNET defendants didn’t know they could get cases reviewed.
A timeline of misconduct within the now-disbanded Glynn County drug squad
Lack of review snags hundreds arrested by now-disbanded task force
Shining a light
This multipart series is part of The Current‘s mission to revive public service journalism in Coastal Georgia that empowers readers to become more civically engaged. The scandal is emblematic of the far-reaching consequences when corrupt police behavior goes unchecked for years.
Our reporters dug into these forgotten lists to examine how how Glynn County’s judicial system chose to treat the tainted GBNET cops compared to those caught in the maw of the unit.
It wasn’t easy or quick — for 15 months reporter Caitlin Philippo worked in the Brunswick court house reviewing and digitizing thousands of pages of court records. Our data reporter Maggie Lee helped analyze and build custom-made spreadsheets and uncover the discrepancies and errors to determine exactly who or how many people were affected by the scandal.
The project was completed with the support of a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures, as well as funding from the Data-Driven Reporting Project. The Data-Driven Reporting Project is funded by the Google News Initiative in partnership with Northwestern University | Medill School.