Calvin Bernard Brown, the man involved in a skirmish with a Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office deputy earlier this month, has retained the legal services of two Atlanta attorneys.
“Prominent Civil Rights Attorneys Harry Daniels and Gerald Griggs have been retained to investigate the August encounter in which Baldwin County Sheriff’s Deputy Joseph Harker took 58-year-old Calvin Brown to the ground and repeatedly struck him during an arrest,” wrote Griggs on his Facebook page.
Griggs is a past president of both the Atlanta NAACP and the Georgia NAACP, according to his website.
Daniels, meanwhile, has worked alongside well-known civil rights attorney Ben Crump on several cases.
Meanwhile, the local NAACP chapter is conducting “its own review.”
“Our focus remains on seeking the truth and advocating for a process that is fair, transparent, and respectful of the rights and dignity of everyone involved,” according to a press release.
The incident occurred on Aug. 3 at the Texaco convenience store on the Vinson Highway, known in Southside parlance as “The Manor Mall,” due to its close proximity to the Milledgeville Manor. Brown was charged with aggravated assault upon a law enforcement officer and obstruction of an officer, which marked the sixth different time that he’s been arrested for obstruction of an officer.
In body cam video of the incident, Brown can be heard saying “I’m gonna sue you,” multiple times.
In the aftermath, Sheriff Bill Massed called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct a review of the incident, while the deputy involved in the skirmish – Joseph Harker – was placed on administrative leave. Meanwhile, the BCSO patrol lieutenant from that night – Chance Rogers – later was fired. 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 Rogers. “I don’t care if you punched him, kicked him, choked him out.”
In an interview with the Union-Recorder, Massee indicated that Rogers was fired for those comments.
“We felt it was totally inappropriate and that he should not be working in our community,” Massee told the newspaper. “We made a decision that he could no longer work here and represent the public in Baldwin County.”
The body cam video, originally released to the media by the Sheriff’s Office, has been widely circulated on Facebook. Several thousand comments later, a few questions have arisen. For example, why didn’t the deputy offer to give Brown a ride home, even if Brown previously had been formally trespassed from the convenience store? Harker originally responded to the scene after a store clerk called 911 and reported a trespasser.
“It’s similar to a property owners who calls us and says ‘there’s someone on my property who has already been trespassed and shouldn’t be here,’” Chief Deputy Scott Deason told The Baldwin Bulletin. “You can’t be trespassed from a location, have it clearly explained to you that you cannot come back, and then come back.”
In the body cam video, it’s clear that Harker struck Brown multiple times in the head with a closed fist. Deason said that he wouldn’t comment on any specifics of the case, citing the ongoing GBI investigation. Instead, Deason deferred to the Sheriff’s Office’s “use of force” policy.
According to the policy, which was revised in August 2020 to prohibit choking, physical force is defined as “compelling a person to comply with an order, submit to arrest, confinement, or to overcome resistance (active or passive) or aggression by use of physical strength, leverage, grasping, striking or other use of the hands, arms, legs, as appropriate.”
So, “striking” and “other use of the hands” is permitted by policy.
Added the policy: “It is the policy of the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office that only the amount and degree of force will be used that is reasonable to perform the various duties of deputies...that is, to protect life and property by affecting arrests, retaining arrestees and preventing personal injury to themselves and others, and to prevent property damage...Each instance of the use of force will require that restraint be exercised, so as not to purposely exceed that force necessary as dictated by the particular circumstances faced by the deputy.”