An investigation from Glynn County
After cops were found guilty, hundreds whom they helped convict are forgotten
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 outrage about this tragedy, a separate police scandal still festers.
In 2019 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 and violating other police policies. By that summer, GBNET had been disbanded, and the judge had declared those officers tainted witnesses. As well, Jackie Johnson, who was Brunswick-area district attorney at the time, 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, former DA Johnson 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.
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.
Your support also makes journalism like this possible, and we thank you.
In Brunswick, drug cops were convicted. A prosecutor was indicted. But hundreds of people caught in their maw are forgotten.
By Caitlin Philippo and Additional reporting by Jake Shore, Maggie Lee and Margaret Coker/The Current
Months before Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, Brunswick prosecutors indexed hundreds of drug convictions due to possible police misconduct. Then, they stopped looking.
GBNET defendants didn’t know they could get cases reviewed.
By Caitlin Philippo
Judge ordered review of hundreds of arrests but many defendants never knew that and served out sentences.
A timeline of misconduct within the now-disbanded Glynn County drug squad
By Caitlin Philippo, Jake Shore, and Margaret Coker
Dominoes fell after one member found misconduct, taking down a squad leader, police chief and other officers.
Lack of review snags hundreds arrested by now-disbanded task force
By Caitlin Philippo
In Glynn County, hundreds of defendants are trapped in legal purgatory because state law fails to trigger reviews in cases involving police misconduct.
Boxes of files, spreadsheets come together to lay out cases not reviewed
By Caitlin Philippo and Maggie Lee
The Current spent 15 months looking at the cases involving approximately 450 people flagged by the DA but who were never informed about an opportunity for legal relief.
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