SHEILA A. MATHEWS :::
Josh Pitts, who served as the lieutenant of the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Unit, has resigned following an investigation conducted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
Sheriff Darrell Dix confirmed that Pitt’s resignation preempted what would have been strong disciplinary action against the former narcotics agent.
The GRIP had learned that Dix intended to demote Pitts from the rank of lieutenant to that of entry level deputy. When asked if that information regarding the disciplinary action Dix had intended to take was accurate, the Sheriff stated, “Yes, among other things.”
Dix later added, “If he had stayed, there would have been disciplinary action taken against him that was pretty severe.”
The GBI investigative report was released to Dix Friday, Aug. 7, and he was in the process of reviewing the case file when Pitts resigned effective immediately.
Dix requested the GBI investigation after receiving information alleging wrongdoing following May 20 arrest of Anthony Smith, who the SCSO alleges is a gang member.
Smith himself did not file an immediate complaint. Instead, the initial report was made by his mother.
According to Dix, she called within hours of her son’s arrest and said he had been physically assaulted on the side of the road while in custody and en route to the Spalding County Jail.
“I came unglued. I think that that is an understatement. I don’t know if I’ve ever been madder than that in my whole life and I’ve been pretty mad,” Dix said.
After confirming the patrol unit transporting Smith to the jail had stopped, Dix immediately requested the GBI investigate the allegation.
“The reason that I didn’t immediately launch an internal investigation is because the incident may have been criminal in nature, so when I learned about the allegation, I contacted the GBI. Within two hours of me learning about the incident, there was a GBI agent sitting in front of me discussing it,” Dix said. “When there’s a criminal investigation going, you don’t start an internal investigation. You let the criminal investigation run its course and then you determine if policies were violated and that sort of nature,” he explained. “Especially when you contact the GBI. They want to speak to witnesses and so forth before anyone speaks to any other investigators.”
Dix said he opted for a GBI investigation to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
“I didn’t want anything said that it was us not doing what were supposed to do. That’s why we contacted them immediately. It wasn’t an issue of letting it sit and stew for days. This (incident) was not good,” Dix said.
Ultimately, it was determined that Josh Pitts will not be prosecuted.
“I, along with several attorneys in my office, have reviewed the case file numbered 02-0226-14-20 involving a complaint made by Anthony Smith. Thank you for your thorough investigation into the matter. Upon review, there is not probable cause to support any criminal charge. This would conclude my office’s involvement,” said Griffin Judicial Circuit District Attorney Marie Broder wrote in a letter to GBI Agent Adam Thompson.
“The letter from the DA’s office was that there was not probable cause for any criminal charges, but there were policies that were violated. I do know that. That was my determination. I was actually in the middle of reading the investigation so I could make the determination of what I was going to do when he resigned,” Dix said. “I was in the middle of that and Josh turned in his resignation, so it was not a resignation while under investigation because I had not begun an internal. I had not even finished reading the GBI report yet.”
Because the GBI investigation had concluded and Dix had not yet initiated an internal investigation, Pitts’ resignation was considered voluntary and will thus not trigger a subsequent investigation by the Georgia Peace Officers Safety and Training Council, the governing body that issues and oversees law enforcement officer certification statewide.
Despite the determination probable cause did not exist for criminal prosecution, Dix said policy violations were clear.
“I do know that he (Pitts) called the officer that was driving the car (Deputy Conner Dix) and told the officer to stop. The officer that was driving the car stopped and never got out of their car. There was a verbal altercation that happened between Josh and Anthony Smith. There was physical contact between Smith and Josh,” Sheriff Dix said. “Josh said that it was non-aggressive, that he touched him on the shoulder because the guy was upset. Smith said that Josh pushed him into the partition, the black plastic partition.”
Asked if forensic tests were conducted to determine if Smith’s head made physical contact with the vehicle’s partition, Dix said the vehicle had been swabbed, but any results would not determine what happened.
“There was one account where when Josh reached up and put his hand on his (Smith’s) shoulder, he snatched his head away and smacked it into the screen. Josh said he was trying to deescalate the situation. It’s one of those things that there’s no denial his head went into the screen, but there’s no way of knowing if he jerked away and hit his head into the screen or was pushed into the screen. I don’t think there’s any doubt that he his head hit it,” Dix said. “I think we know what happened up to a certain point. It’s after that there is a split and again, that’s why I contacted the GBI immediately and didn’t interfere. Other than giving statements, no one in my agency had anything to do with it. I didn’t want anyone to be able to say my agency influenced the investigation. It was right down the line exactly.”
Dix explained what led up to Smith’s arrest and the incident that launched the GBI investigation.
“This guy (Anthony Smith) a couple of days before this made a Facebook post. He’s a known gang member. He’s a member of the Blixy gang. They’re extremely violent. They have a propensity to shoot at people. A couple of days before this happened, he had posted a couple of photos of himself with guns and had called the Sheriff’s Office out and had called Josh (Pitts) out and had used some racial terms to call Josh out. We found him (Smith) in a store in The Flats and took him into custody and took a gun that looked like one from his post on social media. During his arrest, it was a regular arrest. There was no use of force. Nothing. Josh was not at the scene of the arrest. He was actually eating lunch and heard the arrest on the radio,” Dix said. “He (Pitts) called the transporting officer and told him to stop near the UGA-Griffin Campus on Experiment Street and he pulled up behind the vehicle in his car, got out, walked up to the transporting officer’s car, opened the door and that’s when the incident occurred. It was on Experiment Street. He didn’t ask him to pull off behind a building or anything. Josh and Smith both say that Josh opened up the door and there was a verbal altercation. Josh told Smith to keep his name out of his ‘effing mouth.’ They argued with each other. At that point, that’s when the physical contact was made with putting his hand on his shoulder. Josh said he did it to deescalate, like he was saying, ‘Come on, man.’ Smith said he grabbed him by the shoulder.”
Dix described the incident as a highly unusual occurrence.
“I’ve seriously never in the whole time I’ve been in law enforcement heard of this happening before. Someone getting a word in on someone. I’ve never seen it happen before and I’ve never heard of it,” he said. “That’s the issue that was at the forefront of my mind is that he shouldn’t have called the officer and told him to stop the car. He shouldn’t have approached the car. He shouldn’t have opened the door. The whole incident shouldn’t have happened, period. I think it was just he wanted to see him sitting in the back of the car and do the don’t challenge me thing. Don’t call me out. Keep my name out of your mouth. You’re going to jail. I think it was just an extremely poor decision and an extremely poor action that is a prime example of the confidence that we are trying to build not just here but across the country, how it puts that in jeopardy over an emotional decision that I believe everybody agrees should not have happened at all.”
In his statement to the GBI, Conner Dix confirmed Pitts called and told him to stop his vehicle and that he saw the superior officer open the back door of his patrol car. He stated he heard the ensuing verbal altercation and saw Pitts put his hand on Smith but said he did not see Pitts slam his head into the partition.
Relative to this incident, Conner Dix received a three-day unpaid suspension for turning off his body worn camera.
“He (Conner Dix) said they did it all the time; it wasn’t just in this particular incident. He said he looked down and saw that it was on, so he turned it off, but that doesn’t happen anymore. The policy is clear on that. You don’t turn it off,” Dix said, explaining that SCSO policy has been revised to state the use of body worn cameras may not be discontinued until prisoners have been transferred to jail personnel.
Josh Pitts has been hired by the Butts County Sheriff’s Office.
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