Several hundred people have signed an online petition in an effort to get a Statham police officer fired, the Athens Banner-Herald reported.
According to the petition, Officer Marc Lofton has improperly arrested people on DUI charges even though they had only medication that was prescribed to them in their systems, the newspaper reported.
At a recent Statham City Council meeting, 10 people who were arrested by Lofton demanded his ouster. Mary Williams was one of them. She said she took antidepressant medication at 5 a.m. and was arrested on her way home from work in October 2015, according to the paper.
She said she spent a night in jail and has $5,000 in legal fees as a result of the arrest, the paper reported.
Lofton recently made news for another reason. In August, he was run over by a woman he pulled over during a routine traffic stop, sending him to the hospital, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
That incident drew the attention of several people Lofton previously arrested, the paper reported.
The mayor of Statham, which is in Barrow County, has promised an investigation into the DUI incidents.
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