Commissioner Lisa Cupid said Tuesday that Cobb needs a citizen review panel to examine actions and policies of the county police department.
Cupid said that she has been “victimized” by the county administration’s lack of response to her questions about a late-night encounter with an undercover police officer in July.
Cupid made her nearly half-hour long comments at the end of Tuesday’s commission meeting, after fellow commissioner Bob Weatherford said she owed the police department an apology and that her complaints about police “may impede her ability to govern in her district.”
Earlier in the meeting, three public speakers — including Cupid’s husband, Craig — called for the creation of a citizen review panel to oversee complaints against police.
Lisa Cupid was followed by an officer in an undercover vehicle at 1:30 a.m. on July 14. Cupid said after the incident that she believes the officer followed her aggressively because he was in a predominantly African-American area, and that he was there to “harass and intimidate.”
Cupid said the incident left her “in fear for my life,” and that there’s been a lack of response to her questions to county leadership and a lack of support from her fellow commissioners.
“I sit with these commissioners and I … serve with” them, Cupid said. “And I am gravely disappointed by their continuing response, or lack of it. If I can be treated in such a manner, and it can be justified, I’m pretty sure that someone without my level of authority can fear much worse.
“So I do greatly believe that a citizen review board is needed. If I can be lied about by police, then they can be willing to distort the actions of others. If I can be shunned by leadership of Cobb County, they will be willing to mute voices of others in the community.
“If I’m wrong, I simply say prove it.”
Public Safety Director Sam Heaton couldn’t be reached for comment.
But Heaton provided a 16-page report of the incident in July that said the undercover officer was working in the area because of an increase in the number of car burglaries. He said the officer “acted within departmental policies and guidelines.”
“Based upon my review of all circumstances, I concluded there was never any intent to frighten or intimidate anyone by the officer,” the report says, adding that the officer’s actions “were initiated based on proactive police work in an effort to deter and reduce crime in the community.”
Cupid said the officer never met with her — not on the night of the incident, or when she met the next day with Heaton and Police Chief John Houser. Cupid said she was told the officer was off-duty.
“Yet when we uncovered his time sheet, we found he was clocked in every day … for 132 hours that week,” Cupid said. “I don’t understand why this officer was being hidden and unable to communicate.”
Cupid, the only African American on the commission, wrote in a memo describing the incident that the undercover police car had tinted windows and only one functioning headlight. She said the officer sped up behind her as if he was going to ram her bumper.
The Heaton report on the incident said the officer sped behind Cupid to get her license plate number and see how many people were in the car. The officer said he was called off the pursuit after learning the car was registered to Cupid and was being driven in her neighborhood.
The commissioner said others on the board are happy to point out her race when it’s convenient.
“It’s OK for the dominant class to throw my race around for their own advantage, and then maul me for making reference to my race out of a legitimate concern,” Cupid said. “I’m left to wonder what kind of bubble is this county living in.”
Patricia Burns, a resident of Cupid’s district and one of the three speakers in support of a citizen review panel, called the commissioner’s treatment by county officials “victim shaming.”
“Blaming the victim is an attempt to escape responsibility … and it is often used against girls and women,” Burns said.
Weatherford said he’s lived in Cobb for more than 25 years and “I don’t recall any incidents where there has been any necessity or reason to have a review board.”
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