Forsyth Sheriff Speaks Out About His Department, George Floyd

FORSYTH COUNTY, GA — Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Freeman took to social media this weekend to address how his department is responding to the death of George Floyd.

Last week, Freeman said he engaged every employee at the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office in a discussion about the abuse seen in the death of George Floyd.

"I have spoken with dozens of our citizens, who are equally outraged at what they saw occur in Minneapolis, and they’re concerned about what we at the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office do," Freeman said. "After some thought, I wanted to share with you some of that communication I had with our staff.

While this was meant for internal communication, several of our staff have asked me to share it with our community. No good cop has watched this and wasn’t outraged. No good cop is trying to justify this. We all feel our badges shine a little bit less when we see such a despicable act by someone who has been given authority and is supposed to be a servant to their community. Good cops work hard every day to serve. We at the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office have built a strong sense of community trust; a trust we have to earn every day."

The department conducts a strenuous selection process, Freeman said, including hiring those who show through their history, psychological exams and polygraphs to be honest and servant spirited.

"All our front-line deputies wear body-worn cameras, our cars have cameras and our jail has cameras," he said. "We train on not only the physical skills needed in an arrest, but how to deescalate situations, how to recognize implicit bias, in short how to serve with respect and professionalism. Even with this, sometimes bad apples, even evil can sneak its way into the ranks of law enforcement. What we need, what we demand, and what our community deserves is an agency with leadership and officers who are willing to confront bad behavior in their own ranks and hold each other accountable. Evil must be removed before it can do harm, and the only way law enforcement works, the only way for a community to be safe and successful, is for the citizens to have trust for and give consent to, those who serve to protect them.

"What we saw in Minneapolis was evil surfacing. Justice needs to be served, and our nation needs to heal. We can only do that together, with trust and honest service by those we depend on to protect our communities from evil."

He included the internal discussion letter he sent to employees:

Team,

I think we all owe it to ourselves, our profession and our citizens to take a moment to discuss recent and highly publicized events and their effects on our profession.

By now, most of you have seen the video of the Minneapolis PD officer who placed his knee on the neck and head of Mr. Floyd for an extended period of time. He dies shortly after this. I have been a Cop for 33 years, I am never quick to judge another officer without sufficient facts, such as an autopsy finding. In this case, what we see clearly from the video is an abuse of power, not a lack of training or a mistake, regardless of the cause of death. Other officers on the scene owed everyone there some action on their part if they were aware of the circumstances. They owed their fellow officer, Mr. Floyd, the citizens and as importantly, themselves a duty to intervene in the tragedy unfolding in front of them.

If any law enforcement officer can watch the Minneapolis video and find justification to keep your knee on the neck and head of a person who is not actively resisting at the time, for over 5 minutes while the person repeatedly complains of difficulty breathing and verbally states he will not resist, then I could only suggest that such a person does not belong in our profession or understand our purpose. We all know that incidents such as these are unfairly equivalated to all law enforcement officers, even the vast majority who have spent their careers respecting the humanity of all persons, even while enforcing the law. What we are left with, however, is the fact that justified or not, such opinions play a role in how we can successfully interact with our citizens and those who visit or travel through our County. Do not believe that this incident will not have an effect on our profession, or that the case in Glynn County will not, even when none of those defendants were law enforcement officers, just one who previously was in the Justice field.

Did either of these cases have something to do with race? I cannot answer that because I do not know the condition of the men’s hearts who were involved, but they certainly raise the thought and concern. If it did, that is yet another reason we should all be disgusted by these acts. We as an agency, as a profession and as a civilized society need to take a moment to reflect on this callous act, and as much as we can understand, what caused it. This was not a cop doing his job and everything went sideways. This was a failure of the heart.

I don’t believe for one moment that such acts are reflected by the “heart” shown daily by our team at FCSO. Again and again, you continue to demonstrate the ability to have compassion and empathy, even as you strongly enforce the law to keep our community safe. What we have to admit however, is that we have removed some from our ranks who showed a lack of a moral compass that can potentially degrade a person towards such callous acts. We all have to remain vigilant to protect our citizens, the FCSO and ourselves from becoming jaded and lured into the “us versus them” mentality. We owe it to each other to stand strong and call out bad behavior if we see it and again using the catchphrase, we have to “care enough to confront” one another when needed. FCSO has proven time and time again that we can go after the bad guys and keep our community safe while still respecting not only the rule of law, but truly respecting the people we interact with for any reason.

This is a body shot to our entire profession, one that will be difficult to recover from. We all have to rise to the occasion to set the example for others, an example of how law enforcement officers and their community can stand together for safety and maintain mutual respect and trust.

I respect and admire the difficult job you do every day. I pray for your safety, and for wisdom as you serve others….

Sheriff Freeman

Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office

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