DA investigating ex-Hamilton police chief, sergeant after racist body-cam video emerges
The new district attorney for the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit says he’s investigating whether two former Hamilton, Georgia, police officers broke the law in body-camera footage recording their racist views during a Black Lives Matter protest last June.
The police chief, Gene Allmond, resigned last week at Hamilton city leaders’ request. The sergeant, John Brooks, was fired, said Hamilton City Attorney Ron Iddins.
Unaware Brooks’ body camera was on, they were recorded using racial slurs and stereotypes related to slavery while talking about the protest in mid-June, the footage showed.
Mark Jones, who took office as the six-county judicial circuit’s chief prosecutor in January, told the Ledger-Enquirer he has reviewed the video, and believes the two either violated or attempted to violate the oath each took as a law enforcement officer.
Jones said his reasoning is that the Black Lives Matter demonstration attracted counter-protesters, some of whom were armed, and the two officers speculated that were any violent confrontation to ensue, they would stand back and let the counter-protesters “take matters into their own hands” and attack the BLM demonstrators.
Jones said that may constitute “a substantial step” toward violating their oaths to support the U.S. Constitution and to uphold the law. It may also justify charging them with misdemeanors related to malfeasance in office, he said.
He said he has asked whether the Georgia Bureau of Investigation might look into such charges, but the agency was not interested in cases that did not involve felonies.
How the district attorney would file charges remains to be determined, Jones said. The law may require that he take allegations against law enforcement officers to a grand jury, and if so, he would be required to give the defendants notice and allow them to speak to grand jurors in their own defense.
The next grand jury is to meet in May, he said.
Besides the footage recording a conversation between Brooks and Allmond, additional video showed Brooks talking on the telephone with his wife, and of the counter-protesters again saying that “he may just have to let them handle it,” if a brawl broke out, Jones said.
“I think at that point it’s crossing the line where it’s likely to incite violence,” Jones said, adding he’s determined to act if the evidence is sufficient to file charges, fearing either former officer might again find work in law enforcement.
“Somebody’s got to do something,” Jones said.
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 5:37 PM.