On June 6, Elizabeth Jones rushed to the scene of a bad wreck involving her brother on U.S. Highway 17 near this historic coastal town.
When she rolled up with her sister-in-law and grandson, McIntosh County deputy Corey Adamson confronted them, cussed, and told them to get out of the way.
After the African-American women insisted on gaining access to their loved one, the deputy grew angry and pushed the grandson, according to internal affairs records.
“We used to be friends with the police,” Jones said, describing the incident to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Now it’s crazy.”
A department investigation found that the deputy assaulted the family and failed to heed a supervisor’s commands. Investigators recommended that the white deputy be terminated but state records show he voluntarily resigned in July.
Across McIntosh County, black residents offer similar concerns about the tone the department projects under the leadership of Sheriff Stephen D. Jessup, a longtime county commissioner who had no law enforcement experience when he took office eight years ago after defeating Charles “Chunk” Jones, the county’s first black sheriff in more than a century.
African American residents say that the department is overly aggressive toward black motorists, particularly males, harassing them for minor infractions. They say the officers’ conduct is rude and discriminatory. Some blame the hiring of young, inexperienced deputies who let the power go to their heads.
“They’ve created an environment where they are not on our side,” said John Littles, executive director of McIntosh SEED, a community organizing group focused on education and economic growth. “It’s almost like us against them.”
Those collective feelings seemed validated earlier this month by the explosive revelations involving two former McIntosh deputies who exchanged crude, racist messages on Facebook. They referred to blacks as "n——s" and discussed targeting black motorists. Both men were once part of an all-white traffic unit that aggressively patrols I-95.
The messages — which brought national scorn on the former deputies and their department — pointed to racial attitudes that appeared not far removed from an earlier era when small town southern sheriffs were towering figures who used their power with impunity to intimidate and control black residents.
The question that hangs over the department and the sheriff, who faces re-election Nov. 8, after this damaging episode: Are the allegations of racism isolated incidents or part of a broader, more deliberate pattern of discrimination toward black citizens that the sheriff has allowed to fester in his agency?
Jessup said his deputies regularly take racial sensitivity training and he has been open about the Facebook episode, which he said he could have easily brushed under the rug. Instead, he took swift action against those involved.
He insists that his deputies treat everyone in the community with respect and talk to them “like they were your own mama.” He said he grew up in the Old South, where he witnessed racism, but insists those days are long gone.
“It was wrong,” he said. “We’re living in a new era. I will not tolerate racism or bigotry of any fashion. If you display it and I see it, I will not tolerate it.”
Allegations of racism
But The Atlanta Journal-Constitution spoke to several former deputies and others who have worked with Jessup in his capacity as sheriff who said he used racially derogatory language.
One former deputy, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, said traffic operations were directed at black areas of the county while white areas didn’t receive the same treatment.
“Certain areas of the county were off limits,” the former deputy said. “We were always going in the predominantly black areas to do road checks.”
The deputy said the sheriff regularly used the term “blue gums” to refer to blacks, but the deputy never heard him use the N-word. But several others said they did hear the sheriff use the N-word when he was in the company of select white employees.
One former captain in the department, Robert J. Kicklighter, filed a federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint in January 2014 after he had a falling out with the sheriff. Kicklighter’s complaint alleged that the sheriff often used the N-word toward his political opponent or members of the community.
“In fact, this was accepted behavior by several individuals” in the department, Kicklighter’s complaint alleged.
Jessup vehemently denies the allegations and says the people making them are disgruntled former employees who are lying for political gain. He accused Kicklighter, who resigned from the department in August 2013, of having mental health issues, and said he later begged for his old job back.
He also said Kicklighter is working with his political opponent, Charles Jones, who for a second time next month will seek his old job back in an election showdown with Jessup. Jones, who lost in 2012, refused to grant an interview for this story.
“I don’t think in all my life I’ve been accused of being a racist,” said Jessup, who in conversation regularly mentions the importance of religion and devotion to family. “Of all the faults I have, and all the politics I’ve been involved in, I’ve never been accused of that.”
Troubled racial history
The tensions between black citizens and McIntosh County’s largest law enforcement agency take place as communities across the country wrestle with how police treat people of color. But race is not a new issuein McIntosh County or its county seat, Darien.
The issue courses through the history of the community like the waters that flow along the meandering bends of the Altamaha River. Sapelo Island is still inhabited by descendants of the slaves who worked its rice fields.
During the Civil War, black Union troops burned most of the port community of Darien — one of Georgia’s earliest settlements. A historic marker that still stands near the town center describes it as “one of the most controversial events of the Civil War.”
The county was the setting for a civil rights battle in the 1970s as the black community tried to overcome the white political machine controlled by the all-powerful sheriff Tom Poppell, a story told in detail in the book, “Praying for Sheetrock,” by Melissa Fay Greene. The community became mobilized following the shooting of an unarmed black man by the police chief in Darien.
Today, McIntosh remains one of the poorest counties in Georgia, with a population of 14,000 people, a third of whom are African American.
The latest allegations of racial profiling have drawn interest from the Southern Center for Human Rights, which opened an investigation in September into the department's policing practices following the suggestion of racial profiling in the Facebook posts of the former deputies. The center has since sued Jessup and his agency to gain access to open records that weren't being provided.
“Certainly the (department’s) history as a rogue agency played a part in drawing our attention to this jurisdiction, but it’s the present-day accounts of racial animus and intimidation by law enforcement officials that concern us now,” said Sarah Geraghty, managing attorney of the impact litigation unit with the Southern Center for Human Rights.
Under his watch, Jessup says the agency has cleaned up some 25 curbside drug markets that were operating when he took office. He says the department is more responsive and has put more deputies on patrol.
“It’s a lot better than it was eight years ago,” Jessup said.
Aggressive police presence on highways
In the wake of the Facebook posts, public attention has been on the traffic unit.
The six-member unit — currently staffed by white officers — spends most of its time patrolling and running radar along I-95. Sgt. Brant Gaither — who Jessup fired in July and Deputy Jeremy Owens — who abruptly resigned the next day from the Darien police department where he had worked since December — talked on Facebook about targeting black motorists.
Jessup said the traffic unit writes about 1,000 to 1,300 tickets per month, but said there’s no way to target black motorists because the laser speed guns capture a car’s speed far down the interstate before an officer knows the identity of the motorist.
Jessup allowed an AJC reporter to ride with the unit this month.
Sgt. Major Chris Mitchell, sat in his sheriff’s department SUV with the words “In God We Trust” painted on the back, and pointed his laser gun hundreds of feet down the interstate in a construction zone with a 60 mile per hour speed limit.
Asked whether race played any factor, he had an emphatic answer: “Absolutely not.” He said he believes he writes more tickets for white motorists than blacks.
“I’m out here for speeders,” he said. “If you’re male, female, white, black and you’re speeding in that construction zone I’m going to get you.”
He said the Facebook episode was wrong and has “tainted us all,” describing it as the actions of “two ignorant people” that doesn’t reflect the way the unit polices. He said the two officers never displayed any sign that their attitudes on race impacted their policing.
“It’s not something we practice out here,” he said. “It’s not something that would be tolerated.”
NAACP fields complaints
Chuck Speas sees things differently.
He and his cousin were travelling from North Carolina to Florida in June 2015 when they crossed paths with deputy Jeremy Owens on I-95.
When Owens spotted scales in their glove compartment, Speas said, he lost it and his response was disturbing. He drew his gun and referred to the two black men as “coons.” Speas said his cousin was called the N-word.
“That dude just started going crazy,” said Speas, a veteran who has PTSD. “I’m like, ‘Damn this dude is crazy. That dude is racist.’”
The police found less than an ounce of marijuana in the car and a small bag of cocaine and charged his cousin with a lane change violation. In September, the case against Speas’ cousin was dropped because of the Facebook posts.
Speas, who was charged with a misdemeanor, said the incident has made his PTSD worse.
“I don’t play around with the police,” he said. “I have kids….That shook me all the way up. When I went down to court I was shaking.”
Robert Hudley, who is related to Jones, the sheriff’s candidate, is troubled by his home county’s growing reputation for aggressive policing. He’s worried that reputation is driving young people away from the county and hurting businesses.
Hudley, 79, has been involved with the NAACP since the early 1960s. As president of the McIntosh County chapter, he regularly fields complaints from people from other states who received a ticket while passing through McIntosh County en route to Florida or back. The complaints center on excessive fines or interactions with a deputy they thought was rude.
“They say how nasty the people were to them,” Hudley said. “It makes me feel bad because I live here.”
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