Taxpayers Pay Millions To Officers On Leave

A Channel 2 investigation revealed hundreds of police officers from departments around north Georgia who kept getting paid even though they weren’t on the streets fighting crime.

Records obtained by Channel 2 investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer showed one department spent more than $1 million paying cops who have gotten into trouble. Fleischer’s investigation found most of the departments don’t even keep track of how many officers are on administrative leave or how much they are paid. They sometimes work desk jobs answering phones or taking reports. Others are sent home while they’re under investigation.

“I think it’s a terrible waste of taxpayer’s money,” said Cristina Beamud, leader of Atlanta’s Citizen Review Board. The board looks into cases of officers in trouble and reviewed the case of a botched drug raid back on Neal Street in 2006 which killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston.

“They didn’t interview some of the witness officers or the people suspected of doing the same kinds of things for three and a half years,” Beamud said.

Records showed some of the officers were on paid administrative leave the entire time. Ten officers spent a combined 20 years on leave and the city of Atlanta paid them nearly $800,000, documents showed.

“That’s absolutely absurd, and our department would never do anything like that. That to me is a waste of taxpayer money,” said Cpl. Edwin Ritter with the Gwinnett County Police Department. In Gwinnett County, paid administrative leave does not exist. If officers are getting paid, then they go to work, even if it’s desk duty.

“We don’t want them to have a free day, they’re not going to sit at home and watch TV while this investigation is going on,” said Ritter.

Smyrna police begin investigating officers as soon as they get in trouble. The police chief fired former officer Curtis Clyde Cook the morning after he was accused of having an ounce of marijuana hidden in his pants. The department even sent an internal affairs investigator to the scene.

“That’s a very strict and serious standard that we hold folks to. During this investigation, it was quite clear he violated that,” said Smyrna Officer Mike Smith.

Channel 2 Action News filed open records requests with 10 departments and found more than 600 officers placed on administrative leave in the past three years. They missed nearly 30,000 days of police work. The Atlanta Police Department accounted for 86 percent.

“Well I think that’s absolutely horrible for the citizens of our city,” said Atlanta Police Chief George Turner.

Turner has already brought in 10 new internal affairs investigators and switched many of the at-home officers to desk duty.

He said current city policy prevents him from starting an internal investigation until the criminal one is finished, which in some cases takes several years.

“They’re taking up a position that should be filled with someone that is able to provide public safety services,” said Beamud.

Turner told Fleischer that the system could be better. He said, “As the trends change and how we handle OPS investigations, we plan to move our city to that direction.” He added that when he became chief a year and a half ago, he reviewed every one of these cases and switched anyone charged with a felony to unpaid leave.

It will still take up an officer’s position but Turner said if he fired the officers and filled all of the positions right away, and then the officer is cleared, he would have a problem. He told Channel 2 Action News the policy is still a work in progress.