Clayton County Commissioner Felicia Franklin, mired in controversy after being found passed out on the ground in front of a local mall last month, vowed Tuesday not to resign from office.
Franklin has claimed that she was drugged that night.
Despite a Morrow Police investigation that found no evidence of her claim, Franklin stuck to her position at Tuesday’s Clayton Board of Commissions meeting that someone put the “date rape” pill gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, in her drink as she listened to a band at the 404 Sports Bar & Grill at Southlake Mall on Sept. 29.
Hours later, Franklin, who is running to be chairwoman of the Clayton Commission, was found prone on the concrete in what police believed was her own urine.
“I am going to continue to do the work of the people because that is what matters,” a defiant Franklin said in her first public comments since the incident.
The remarks come four days after Morrow Police closed its investigation into the matter, which they had opened at Franklin’s request. The department said Franklin was inebriated and apparently passed out and fell off a bench she had been sitting on outside the bar as she waited for a ride. Police also say she paid a $97 bar tab with campaign money.
While police found no evidence she had been drugged at the bar, a urine test administered by Southern Regional Medical Center after the commissioner arrived at the hospital came back positive for cannabis in her system.
Video from the bar’s cameras captured Franklin enjoying herself, dancing and singing along with the band. Police said she drank a glass of wine and three mixed drinks and took a sip of a beer belonging to a band member.
She stumbled from the bar and sat down on a bench just feet from the establishment. Police called emergency responders when they found her on the ground because they feared she might have suffered a concussion from a fall. After being strapped to a gurney, she became combative, cursing and screaming at a paramedic as he tried to help her.
She also vomited, wailed repeatedly that someone put something in her drink and cried that she had been left by unknown people.
The incident has led to growing calls for Franklin to step down, with residents saying that she is an embarrassment to the community and failed to display leadership.
“I don’t even know what happened that day, but what I do know (is) it’s time for you to step down and find something else to do in the county,” Hampton resident Teresa Hampton told Franklin at Tuesday’s commission meeting. “We don’t need this.”
Timothy Vondell Jefferson, who unsuccessfully challenged Franklin for her District 3 seat in 2020, got into a back and forth with the commissioner at the meeting and was eventually escorted from the podium by a Clayton Police officer. He said Franklin failed her fiduciary responsibilities to the county by making Clayton the laughingstock of metro Atlanta.
“I don’t know how you think you can recover from such an embarrassing episode,” he said. “It was ... unprofessional and it is not what the county needs.”
Franklin responded by saying her detractors reminded her of Jesus’ travails before his crucifixion.
“Jesus said, ‘Let he without sin cast the first stone,’” she said.
Carol Yancey, a frequent critic of Franklin, questioned whether police could charge the commissioner for filing a false report since no evidence was found backing her allegations.
“Ms. Franklin is a liability for our county, image and businesses,” she said. “Please resign.”
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