CHAPTER 1: THE CALL
July 14, 2024
Participants: Shane (complainant) and Lt. David Barone (Cherokee County Sheriff's Office)

Edited for readability from the supplied video transcript. Repeated subtitle overlaps removed. Speaker assignments inferred from dialogue.


[00:00:00] Lt. David Barone:
What is your name, sir?

[00:00:02] Shane:
Let's just call me Shane.
I'll give you that much for now
On Sixes road
Or actually attempting to get onto sixes road a couple of days ago,
and there were two vehicles coming down the hill,
and I was coming out of the mountain bike park right there
So start to pull out
There's two cars coming down the hill to my left
The spacing looks really good
I'm thinking I'm going to pull out after the first car goes by
as I'm waiting for that car to go by, I realize the second car
is flying down the hill
I mean, it's going really fast
That would be Cherokee County Sheriff's vehicle number 1060
So they both go past, I pull out
I get up to the speed limit
You know, it's like 35 right there And I realize that trooper, the a
Cherokee County sheriff's vehicle
he’s hauling ass
I mean, he is flying
The reason I knew his vehicle is because he got hung up at the light right there at the racetrac
When we got there, I made note of his vehicle number,
and then he turned left and hauled ass back in the other direction
Now, if a citizen files a complaint on, you know, witnessing
excessive speed and reckless driving,
on a one of your vehicles, how is this, how is it investigated?
How is it sustained or dismissed or not found?
How do you how do you determine....

[00:01:07] Lt. David Barone:
What I would do is I would forward it to his supervisor
and let them figure out why he was driving fast
For all you know, he had a medical call that he had to go to at sixes
at five at QT
And on the way there the call was canceled
So he may have just turned around and made a U-turn at that racetrac
to go back the other way

[00:01:23] Shane:
Okay, but a dispatch log would be available?

[00:01:26] Lt. David Barone:
I'm sorry?

[00:01:26] Shane:
Would there be any record of him being, assigned to a call on an emergency call?

[00:01:32] Lt. David Barone:
Yes. Yes.
So that would be there
I’m not gonna look into his GPS to see how fast he was going at that particular time
We don't have the capabilities of recording everyone's speed at all the times
because the cloud space would just be too expensive
for us to hold that type of information (KB’s)

[00:01:49] Shane:
So it's my word against his?

[00:01:50] Lt. David Barone:
well ultimately
But you don't know how fast he was going, do you?

[00:01:53] Shane:
Well, when I was doing the speed limit

[00:01:54] Lt. David Barone:
well you said he was hauling ass
Hauling ass doesn't really give me an idea how fast he was going

[00:02:05] Shane:
Okay

[00:02:05] Lt. David Barone:
And then he's allowed to go ten miles over the speed limit by Georgia law
So, you know, if he was going faster than 45 or 46 miles and hour

[00:02:13] Shane:
What Georgia what Georgia law is that?

[00:02:15] Lt. David Barone:
You’re allowed to go the speed limit
You’re allowed to go ten miles over the speed limit before we’re allowed to give you a citation
So you have to go 11 over
the speed limit for me to write a citation for you
Now it's different now that Georgia Patrol

[00:02:29] Shane:
Yeah sure

[00:02:30] Lt. David Barone:
Yeah Georgia State trooper can write ...
right he can write a citation for 1 mile over the speed limit

[00:02:35] Shane:
You guys can break the speed limit if you have your emergency
lights on, siren and responding to an emergency call
Those are required!

[00:02:42] Lt. David Barone:
We don't know if he wasn't responding to an emergency call, do we Shane??

[00:02:45] Shane:
Vehicle 1060

[00:02:47] Lt. David Barone:
I heard you the first two times
I heard you the first two times 1060
You're upset that this driver was speeding because he was hauling ass
Is there anything else Shane?

[00:02:55] Shane:
yeah

[00:02:55] Lt. David Barone:
Can you tell me what time of day it was?
Give me something

[00:02:58] Shane:
yes

[00:02:58] Lt. David Barone:
That way, you know, we could figure out who it was

[00:03:01] Shane:
Give me your email address, where I can send a formal complaint
about the conduct of your officer that I witnessed on Saturday morning,
around 10 a.m.

[00:03:08] Lt. David Barone:
And how fast were you going?

[00:03:09] Shane:
The posted speed limit right there
If you'd like, I provide a dashcam
I have dashcam video of all this

[00:03:14] Lt. David Barone:
Absolutely, That would be great!

[00:03:16] Shane:
But we're going to begin with
who do I send the email to
of a Formal complaint?

[00:03:19] Lt. David Barone:
are you ready?

[00:03:20] Shane:
You ready? Let's start with the story. Yeah.

[00:03:20] Lt. David Barone:
DMBARONE@CHEROKEEGA.COM

[00:03:23] Shane:
I'm not trying to get an attitude with you, which I get this
I get the impression that you're a little annoyed that I'm inquiring about this

[00:03:29] Lt. David Barone:
Oh, no SIR you're not inquiring, You're making a complaint!
I completely understand why you're doing it
We expect our officers to obey the laws at all times
And I'm sorry that you think

[00:03:40] Shane:
which contradicts what you said a few minutes ago
Go ahead and talk, I didn’t mean to interupt you
A few minutes ago, you justified him speeding ten miles over to ten miles
an hour over the speed limit
because citizens are allowed to go 10 over the speed limit

[00:03:52] Lt. David Barone:
Cherokee Sheriff's Office employees are also allowed to go 10 over the speed limit
BECAUSE
THAT
IS
THE
LAW!
And because we allow you to go over ten miles an hour
I will allow the officer to go ten miles over the speed limit
Yes sir

[00:04:03] Shane:
So so that ten mile an hour buffer is not written in the law
That's written because that's when you can or cannot use speed detection devices
You can still pace me and give me a citation for that speed
speed detection devices
are where you get to ten mile an hour buffer

[00:04:16] Lt. David Barone:
correct

[00:04:17] Shane:
You can you can pace me at five
You can pace me Give me a citation for five over
So that ten mile an hour buffer you're talking about, it's not written into law!
That's that's your discretion

[00:04:25] Lt. David Barone:
Yes, yes absolutely
and I’m gonna give that same discretion to the officers
yes sir!

[00:04:30] Shane:
Which tells me you're probably not going to do anything about it, but

[00:04:33] Lt. David Barone:
Okay then Shane!
I am looking forward to your complaint
Is there anything else that you need from me?
Would you like me to return
and let you know what my findings were?

[00:04:40] Shane:
I'm sure you're investigate yourself and find no wrongdoing!
But I'm going to follow this, I'm going to do it!

[00:04:44] Lt. David Barone:
I look forward to it Shane
Would you like me to call you back with my findings?

[00:04:48] Shane:
I would like for everything to be done through email so this could be documented.
You'll get my email
You'll have every every detail
You'll have all the corresponding information

[00:04:56] Lt. David Barone:
Okay.
And you'll be able to include that dashcam video for me?

[00:04:59] Shane:
If you subpoena it I will

[00:05:01] Lt. David Barone:
I'm not going to subpoena anything
This isn't a criminal investigation
I'm trying to find out if my officer
you know, did something wrong and you said you had video of it
You were willing to give it to me
You asked for my email address, but now you don't want to.
Let me know if there's anything else that I can do for you. Sir.

[00:05:19] Shane:
No, I think you've done enough of shirking and deflecting.