DeKalb County

DeKalb jailer investigated in hit-and-run accident

By Nicole Carr, WSB-TV
By Nicole Carr, WSB-TV

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga, — A DeKalb County jailer is being investigated in a hit-and-run accident.

The victim, Rebecca Thomas, says she was able to get a photo, but not of the license plate, so it took her several days to track the jailer down.

The photo showed the man in the driver’s seat with his DeKalb County sheriff's decal hanging in the windshield.

Thomas says the man sideswiped her at Donald Lee Hollowell Pkwy and Northside Drive on Nov. 21. They both pulled over and she had a brief confrontation with the driver.

“I said ‘What's wrong with you? What are you doing?’” Thomas said. “He just kept saying, ‘You hit me. You hit me.’”

TRENDING STORIES:

A police officer asked the two to move their cars out of the intersection until another officer could arrive to take the accident report.

“It took 30 seconds. The cop was gone, and so was the guy that hit me,” Thomas said.

Thomas had already started snapping photos of the minor damage and the driver behind the wheel. She never caught the license-plate number, but she did snap a close-up of a DKSO parking permit hanging from the rearview mirror.

But Thomas says it still took a while to track the man down because there was a lot of back and forth between the sheriff's office internal affairs, HR and Atlanta police, who handled the accident.

‘She called them and they refused to release the guy's name to the officer in Atlanta," Thomas said.

DeKalb County identified the permit holder, confirming to Channel 2’s Nicole Carr and police that he is one of their current employees, who's been on personal leave for several weeks.

Because charges have not been filed in the case at this point, we blurred the driver's face, but we ran through records that show than man has been a jailer in good standing with the office since 2009.

Rebecca Thomas snapped these photos as the man who hit her car drove away.

By the middle of our interview, nine days after that accident, Thomas got a call from Atlanta police, saying the jailer doesn't remember the accident.

“But he gave up his insurance information to get my car fixed,’” Thomas said.

Thomas says she wants him to take responsibility for a hit-and-run.

‘You would think that someone from the sheriff's office would definitely know better,’ she said.

The investigation is ongoing.

DeKalb County Sheriff's Office says they have no plans to conduct their own investigation.

Thomas says the jailer's insurance company is now citing a possible six-week process to receive a final police report and begin their investigation.

Cox Media Group

Most Read