FACEBOOK VIDEO VIEWS IN HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS
Videos from an incident involving a Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office deputy and a suspect at a southside convenience store have now been viewed on Facebook more than 300,000 times.
In the videos, Deputy Joseph Harker is seen punching the suspect, Calvin Brown, multiple times while Brown’s back is on the pavement. Brown ultimately turned the tables, pinning the deputy to the ground before punching and kicking him.
Harker was suspended “pending a Georgia Bureau of Investigation review,” while Brown was arrested and charged with aggravated assault upon a law enforcement officer and felony obstruction of an officer.
In the aftermath, a night shift lieutenant who responded to the incident no longer is employed by the Sheriff’s Office. Chance Rogers, a deputy for the last three years, resigned in the days following the incident, Chief Deputy Scott Deason confirmed to The Baldwin Bulletin.
“He tendered his resignation and is no longer employed by the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office. It’s still a personnel matter at this point, and that’s all I can say.”
That news was first reported by New Media: The Whole Truth, a social mediabased news outlet operated by Lamar King, Jr.
In the body cam footage of the video, Rogers responds to the scene, and Harker gives him a recap.
I punched him in the face about eight times,” Harker says.
“I don’t care,” responds Rodgers. “I don’t care if you punched him, kicked him, choked him out.”
Choking has been disallowed since August 2020, when the Sheriff’s Office revised its use of force policy.
Also, New Media: The Whole Truth did a deep dive into Harker’s disciplinary history with the Milledgeville Police Department, where he worked prior to joining the Sheriff’s Office. Harker received a five-day suspension in July 2023 after using the Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC) database to look up information about a vehicle parked in front of his ex-girlfriend’s house. The ex-girlfriend, an MPD officer at the time, told her superiors that Harker became extremely upset and hurt his hand after banging on the window. The ex-girlfriend said that she was “scared of Officer Harker,” according to the reporting.
Several weeks after the suspension, Harker resigned from the MPD and immediately went to work as a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office.
Harker had three other documents in his MPD disciplinary history.
Reached for comment, MPD Chief Dray Swicord said that “everything in (King’s) reporting is accurate.”
Meanwhile, Deason said that the Sheriff’s Office “was not aware of any internal disciplinary actions” during Harker’s time with the MPD. Deason said that the Sheriff’s Office’s screening process is streamlined through the Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council (POST), which essentially is the state licensing board for law enforcement officers in Georgia.
“There were no disciplinary actions listed on (Harker’s) POST profile,” Deason said. “He was in good standing with POST.”