Georgia State Patrol to fire post commander over alleged violations

The commander of a Georgia State Patrol post was to lose his job Wednesday after an investigation turned up policy violations, officials said.

Sgt. Blake Swicord, commander of the Milledgeville post, has been under investigation since the FBI, IRS and DEA raided a restaurant and bar in that city in February, the Macon Telegraph reported.

That raid turned up some guns that Swicord had bought at a gun sale, officials said. The guns were in the hands of someone with a criminal background.

Since then, an internal investigation by the Georgia Department of Public Safety revealed that Swicord, among other things:

• used his state-issued phone to contact multiple women with whom he exchanged sexually explicit texts and nude photographs;
• used his position to influence a Tybee Island police officer to erase a traffic citation issued to his girlfriend.

Swicord has been on paid leave since February.

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