Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024
Good morning. In this week’s public safety newsletter, we’re covering the transparency promise of police body cameras, the challengers seeking to unseat the Camden County sheriff and the latest in a Statesboro tax evasion case.
Questions, comments or story ideas? You can contact me at jake.shore@thecurrentga.org.
When body camera footage is hidden from view
Body cameras, pitched in the 2010s as a transparency tool for police reform, became a hallmark of American policing. Since then, taxpayers paid tens of millions of dollars to outfit police departments with the cameras, which protect lawful officers from liability and holds officers who act unlawfully accountable.
But according to a recent ProPublica investigation, the promise of transparency has been largely unfulfilled: when officers fatally shoot civilians, the public rarely sees the footage. The nonprofit news outlet examined 101 police killings from June 2022 (a time frame they chose because investigations would be reasonably concluded by now). The news outlet confirmed that body camera footage existed in 79 of those deaths. As of December 2023, footage has been released in only 33 of those incidents.
One example the news outlet included was the killing of Saudi Lee by former Savannah Police Department Officer Ernest Ferguson on June 24, 2022.
On the smoldering hot Savannah day, Lee, a Black man, was walking on Gwinnett Street in Carver Village when approached by Ferguson, a white officer. Lee immediately showed the officer his wallet, saying he had a weapons permit. Lee lifted his shirt and pulled out a firearm. Then, for an undisclosed reason, Ferguson began chasing Lee, and shot and killed him. It was the fifth killing by Savannah police in a year.
Despite the Georgia Bureau of Investigation completing its investigation of the incident in Aug. 16 2022, the body camera footage cannot be released because it is still under investigation by Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones. Georgia Open Records law does not permit the release of records, like body camera footage, when a criminal case is still considered pending.
More than 500 days have gone by since Lee’s death, but DA Cook Jones said she has been unable to make a final decision on the case because she is too busy with the base obligations of her office — prosecuting felonies and major crimes.
New sheriff in town?
Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor will run to keep his seat in 2024 after a damaging year of alleged deputy misconduct in traffic stops, jailhouse beatings of inmates, and sky-high insurance costs from lawsuits and replacing wrecked deputy cruisers.
Proctor, who wrote on Facebook he is running as an independent, has some accomplishments to lean on from his past term, including his successful push to revive the criminal prosecution of the $3.2 million fraud by Camden County officials, resolving a longstanding lawsuit over funding with Camden County commissioners and securing modest raises for jail deputies.
Challenging Proctor is one of his former officers, Kevin Chaney. Chaney worked as a major under Proctor (a position which holds the responsibility of running a division and serving directly below the sheriff) after beginning his career at the Camden County Sheriff’s Office in 1995. He made major in 2022 but left the agency in October 2023. He is now a captain in the Kingsland Police Department.
Chaney says his biggest concerns are use of force incidents, aging facilities and recruitment and retention, according to his campaign website. Some transparency measures he pitched include: “Establish an employee complaint system, Look into an advisory board for policy reviews, Uphold a 5-step discipline procedure.”
District 3 Commissioner Trevor Readdick announced on Facebook he planned to run as well. Readdick owns a construction firm and does not have law enforcement experience. In 2021, he was embroiled in some controversy after the Tribune & Georgian discovered Readdick tried to interfere in a Kingsland Police arrest involving one of his employees. Still, Readdick said his outsider credentials make him the right person to clean up “the mess” at the sheriff’s office.
“People are saying I don’t have the same experiences as my opponents. Well, I’d have to agree with them,” Readdick said in a campaign video. “I don’t have experiences with federal indictments, violation of civil rights, and jail misconduct.”
Statesboro tax evasion case
The final defendant in a tax evasion scheme involving Southeast Georgia college bars and a former Statesboro city council member was sentenced to six months in federal prison on Monday.
James Stafford pleaded guilty in March 2022 to one count of tax evasion and is required to pay approximately $53,000 to the Internal Revenue Service as restitution. A federal judge recommended Stafford be sent to a federal prison in Montgomery, Ala.
Prosecutors said Stafford obscured ownership of bars near college campuses, including the now-closed Rum Runners bar near Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, and participated in a scheme to underreport funds and file false tax returns.
The alleged scheme went like this: Stafford said he was the sole owner of some of the bars, at the direction of former Statesboro Council Member William Britt, according to court documents. The ex-official had associates own at least eight restaurants/bars in Southeast Georgia on paper, when the establishments actually had secret split ownerships.
“The bar owners and managers under-reported credit and debit card receipts and skimmed cash revenues to avoid paying taxes on all of the profits. The skimmed cash was then distributed to the true owners of the bars according to their ownership percentages,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing document.
The other establishments in Britt’s scheme included Milltown Groove in Valdosta, Dillinger’s in Americus, Bluewater Saloon in Valdosta, the Gin in Tifton and Rude Rudy’s in Statesboro, according to court documents.
Body cameras were sold as a tool for police reform. Ten years later, most footage is kept from public view.
A ProPublica review found that police body camera videos rarely viewed by public despite millions in taxpayer dollars spent to outfit police departments with the transparency tool.
Savannah cop who killed Carver Village man had use-of-force investigations in prior job
Savannah Police Officer Ernest Ferguson shot and killed a man in Carver Village last month. Records show he was disciplined and the subject of internal investigations for use-of-force incidents when he worked at Coastal State Prison.
Messy vetting process kept Savannah officer’s disciplinary history hidden when hired
Officer Ernest Ferguson had a long disciplinary record as a prison guard An ex-supervisor hid that fact when he was seeking work with Savannah police.
$500K settlement in Camden County jail beating lawsuit
A federal lawsuit accusing the Camden County Sheriff’s Office of beating a man was settled for half-a-million dollars, sources say. It’s the latest financial repercussion due to claims against the agency, which forced the county to lose its insurance coverage this summer.
Frequent misbehavior by Camden deputies leads to dropped insurance coverage
Camden taxpayers will have to foot the bill, after the county’s insurance provider no longer wishes to cover its losses due to repeated malpractice incidents from Camden County Sheriff’s Office deputies, like jailhouse beating, car crashes and damaging PIT maneuvers during chases.
Fact Check: Contrary to social media posts, IRS will target ‘high-income’ tax evaders with new funds
The Inflation Reduction Act includes $79 billion for the IRS. Social media posts misleadingly claim the IRS will now hire “87,000 new agents” to investigate average citizens. But most new hires will provide customer services, and enforcement efforts will be aimed at “high-income and corporate tax evaders,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said.
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