Education
Education

Campus cops in Ga. get hired despite troubled records

Gioconda Lewis, front, then an officer with Agnes Scott College, patrols the campus in 2005. Lewis was subsequently fired from the college for driving on a suspended license but found jobs in other agencies, including Spelman College. SUNNY SUNG / AJC
Gioconda Lewis, front, then an officer with Agnes Scott College, patrols the campus in 2005. Lewis was subsequently fired from the college for driving on a suspended license but found jobs in other agencies, including Spelman College. SUNNY SUNG / AJC
By and Jeff Ernsthausen
Oct 30, 2017

More than one in 10 college campus police in Georgia have been fired or forced to resign from a previous job, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found.

The number of college officers with these checkered pasts is double the percentage of officers working at local county or municipal agencies. Roughly 13 percent of the 1,413 officers working on 63 college campuses across Georgia have been fired or forced from a job.

The offenses that led to college officers getting let go from a previous job ranged from domestic violence to excessive force to lying to their superiors. Smaller colleges tended to have more tolerance for officers with problems in their histories, matching a trend of small police agencies across the state.

To read more about the investigation, including the story of one officer who kept being hired by colleges despite repeated terminations or resignations, go to myAJC.com.

About the Authors

Brad Schrade is an investigations editor at The AJC.

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Jeff Ernsthausen
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