School police officer Warren Favors punched a 15-year-old student after the teen called him “play-play cop” and threatened him in a hallway.

The incident was captured on video that shows Favors tackling the student from behind after the taunts.

“I’m tired of you threatening me [expletive],” Favors told the student, according to case summary records. “You gonna get enough of being disrespectful.”

The 2014 incident left the student with two bone fractures and ended Favors' police career. But it was not the first time Favors had run afoul as a cop. He had resigned in lieu of termination from the Albany Police Department in May 2003 for dishonesty, which he disputed, and Dougherty County School System Police hired him in January 2006.

The second chance he received was hardly a fluke.

Statewide, school system police departments employ officers who have been terminated or resigned under the cloud of an investigation at twice the rate of local police departments, according to an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Actions News.

Roughly 12 percent of the 656 officers working in the state's 31 school police departments have been forced out of a previous job, versus about 6 percent of the officers who work in local police agencies, according to data obtained from the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council (POST), the state agency charged with certifying police.

About the Authors

Keep Reading

Kate Sharer, Biotechnology Teacher and iGEM Advisor, instructs her students at Lambert High School in Forsyth County in December 2024. Forsyth County Schools had the highest average ACT composite score of any district in Georgia for the graduating class of 2025. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Featured

Members of the conversion crew take a break as the main scoreboard is lowered to the floor to be worked on as the arena gets ready for the next concert at State Farm Arena, Thursday, October 2, 2025, in Atlanta. The crew was working on creating a stage for the Friday, Oct. 3 Maxwell concert. (Jason Getz/AJC)

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com