Probe: DeKalb Police Did Not Follow Warrant Policy
Decatur Metro | January 27, 2010A probe into why DeKalb Police let County Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton leave the scene of an accident after it was discovered she had four outstanding warrants, determined yesterday that three county police officers didn’t follow departmental policy.
“The policy is they should have contacted Gwinnett,” said Shelia Edwards, a spokeswoman for the county CEO. “Essentially they should have not let her go. They should have called to Gwinnett to verify the warrant is valid.”
Under department policy, Assistant Chief F. J. Kliesrath, Capt. T. S. Dedrick and Lt. C. T. Whittington received written counseling for violating department policy, since it was their first offense, Edwards said.
As for what compelled the officers to commit this offense…
Whittington decided not to notify Gwinnett and told the patrol officer to release the commissioner. His decision was based on the facts that the warrants were old, for a nonviolent offense, Sutton was not a flight risk and she “is an elected official in DeKalb County and Lt. Whittington did not want to bring any embarrassment or discredit to her,” according to Miller.
Well, at least there’s some honesty in that statement. More than I can say for the commissioner.
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An officer admittedly takes politics into account in deciding to ignore department policy, and all he gets is “written counseling”, whatever that is supposed to mean? Pathetic.
I was also wondering what “written counseling” was.
His name was put on the naughty list?
… but not as pathetic as the politician…
I disagree. When you have the police treat politicians above the law, admit it and then use the “first offense” excuse (maybe first time got caught?) for a their slap on the wrist handling of this serious breach of trust, the barbarians are not only at the gates, they’ve been given the keys to the city.
The issue of police ignoring a court order (warrant) is seperate from the commissioner’s record. I presume the warrants were available to the electorate during her election if anyone bothered to check.
A stern talking-too and a reprimand in their file seem comensurate to this offense. I don’t want us to lose experienced police officers over what seems to me like a kind of contempt of court situation. Not exactly a felony.(as far as I know)
It’s not a contempt of court situation. It is a direct violation of the duty to arrest people who are supposed to be arrested. It’s not for the police to deem a warrant too old, too embarassing for a country commissioner, a mere non-violent offense, etc. We have judges, juries, prosecutors to make those decisions. And even they are not supposed to selectively enforce the law by ignoring warrants for a county commissioner.
It’s been established that what they did was wrong. They’ve been punished administratively.
The show’s over unless you can get the DA to file criminal charges of some sort.
Good luck with that.
Nothing in this incident is surprising. Everything was dissappointing.