A Georgia police officer is calling out Dekalb County Sheriff Jeffrey Mann after being forced to resign just three days before his retirement. The offense? Wearing an Afro-wig while he was posted outside a courthouse, directing traffic.
Antonio Perryman told WSB-TV says he was “robbed” of completing 20 years of service with the force by his superiors, who reprimanded him within hours of completing his shift.
“I said, ‘Hey, you know, let me make people happy, you know? Do something a little different.’ So I put on the Afro wig. Neither time I was out there did I not do my job duties,” Perryman told the local TV news station. He was warmly received as he was directing traffic, drawing laughter from passersby. Some even snapped photos of him.
“You know, that made me feel a little joyous about that being my last week,” he said.
But top brass didn’t approve, and Perryman received a call later that night informing him that Sheriff Mann and his second-in-command, Deputy Sheriff Melody Maddox, were upset about his attire. Both Maddox and Mann are black.
“[They] told me that I disgraced the uniform,” Perryman said. “I just got numb. Like ‘I disgraced the uniform?’ And in my mind, I’m here saying that we got a sheriff running through Piedmont Park from the police like it’s an episode of ‘Cops.’”
The police officer saw the comments as hypocritical in light of Mann’s 2017 indecency and obstruction charges, which were filed after he was caught on video running from Atlanta cops. Very rude of Perryman to snatch Sheriff Mann’s wig in that way!
Mann ended up pleading guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced to pay fines of $2,000, on top of being banished from Atlanta’s city parks for six months, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but there are departments throughout the country (still) handing out paychecks to officers who have beaten their partners and/or family, abused their authority, or killed people on the job. So it’s interesting to see what Sheriff Mann allegedly characterizes as a termination-worthy “disgrace.”
Perryman says he won’t lose pay as a result of the forced resignation, but his records won’t reflect that he retired, as he had planned.