No, not the conference. The Department.
“After reviewing all evidence, including videos, and discussing the case with us, the State agreed to dismiss all charges against Mr. Branch yesterday,” Stephens said in a message on Wednesday morning. “Zachariah cooperated fully with law enforcement and did not commit a crime on the night of his arrest and never should have been arrested. We are glad this matter is over and that Mr. Branch’s excellent reputation and good name restored.”
Good for him. No, I’m not applauding whenever someone beats the rap, if you’re driving 100 miles an hour on the loop, it’s an invitation to jail. But for Branch’s case, he’s a good dude and not deserving of the selective wrath of the ACCPD.
Now go be great, Mr. Branch. It’s not often to get a pardon from the ACCPD.
Wonder if the Athens PD disciplined the overzealous officer? Probably not in these days when government is not accountable.
Absolutely should have
I’m sure he was instructed to target someone who looked a good bit poorer and thus less able to afford a lawyer who would complain about their tactics.
Derek, I think about this because about 5 years ago a couple police officers asked me to dump my beer since I was outside a VIP spot at Twilight (it’s since loosened up to be a good portion of Downtown). No biggie, right? Not a negative experience from my perspective. Honestly, didn’t give a rip and figured Open Container was de riguer for Twilight like Football season, apologized and dumped it. My girlfriend gave me a hard time: “Police bothering you about your first beer, not your twentieth”? Out of curiosity, I went to the police blotter a couple days later. Over/Under anybody like me (man of a certain age, relatively clean cut, in cargo shorts and either a race, UGA or service connected tee shirt and non chalantely compliant) in the round up? Had I been arrested, I would have been out it 5 minutes since I’m a homeowner or had cash for Bail and I woulda dropped a few hundred on a lawyer to make it go away (I guess, don’t really know but I’m on a roll). What do we think about ACCPD on this? Was I lucky I behaved? Met up with good cops? Lucked out they weren’t jerks? It was still daylight, maybe five hours later it’s a different conversation. Does it even matter? Had I “smirked” would it have been a different story? A lot of moving parts in this but at the end of the day has ACCPD (or UGAPD) maintained our civic trust? Are they good because they didn’t bother me or would they be bad if they booked me? Until we get accountability and transparency from them a lot of people could run with a “Justice ain’t blind in Athens” narrative that is probably more complex than me wandering around with beer on an April Saturday night.
Everyone intuitively knows the deal. We just struggle to admit it because its not in our interests to do so.
I love this interaction in the show version of Fargo when a billionaire explains how shit works to a police officer:
Lorraine Lyon: What is your function?
Minnesota Police Deputy Indira Olmstead: Excuse me?
Lorraine Lyon: The police. I mean, why do we need you? Except as a tool to keep a certain element in line. To separate those who have money, class, intellect from those who don’t. You’re gatekeepers, standing outside the walls, keeping the rabble from getting in. But in here, inside these walls, you have no function. You should remember that.
Very crystallizing. Sadly, whenever that truth manifests itself, even if on video, the tendency is to go both blind and tribal.
The first sign they looked for was the purse pants, Never a good look for a man over 20.
I like to have fun with y’all and am very thankful for this community keeping the faith after the Senator’s passing, and for me, RangerRuss. In all seriousness, I find this situation incredibly troubling. As noted above, the lack of accountability and transparency from ACCPD is unacceptable. PERIOD. I have had conversations with Winder PD, Madison County Sheriffs, a retired US Marshal (UGA parent of 3 DGDs) and a FBI field agent and ALL (even the FBI guy down at GlynnCo) have incredibly negative views of ACCPD. I specifically tried my best to be respectful of the job in my conversations and ask questions. Additionally, I did ride a longs with local deputies as a kid (my Dad was a Bank Manager and figured getting on the radar of local LEOs was wise) and did outreach with local PD in the libraries I managed to get young people positive interactions with police. It’s gotten beyond the point of “I wasn’t there,” so shut up. This has been a consistent thing for thirty bad word years! It’s a community cancer that puts everyday citizens not only at risk but sours the Social Contract. Yeah, this is a point O O O 1 interaction and nobody expects perfection from LEOs and plenty of top hands in the department probably hate seeing this stuff but until we the tax payers (I live in Athens, for now. TBH, thinking about community policing is on my list of Cons and might be a reason I move. In my heart I love Athens circa the 90s but in my head it’s 30 years later and I can find somewhere else to Peter Pan my way to retirement) see better policing I fear for the consequences. Out of respect, I will stay out of the politics of modern community policing, but Athens, Ga is on the wrong side of the bell curve regarding police behaviour from the top on down. In the span of 20 years, we’ve had a player arrested for not having a middle name and for smirking while standing on a sidewalk and countless BS in between. NOBODY here is complaining about the Super Speeding going on (mainly because the Football players are a minority of UGA student drivers – Madison Mug Shot Girl, anyone – getting lit up, they just end up in the news). ACCPD needs to be better, period; and this episode is not an outlier, it’s a data point.
Thank you, for coming to my TedTalk
When Jimmy retired someone had to keep up the harassment.
Jimmy the jerk.