BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Leaders of a coastal Georgia county say they’re enlisting expert help in their search for a new chief to lead the county’s embattled police department.
Glynn County commissioners said the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives will work together to vet candidates for the police chief’s job.
Glynn County police have faced harsh criticism for failing to make arrests in the February, 2020, fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a young Black man pursued and slain by a white father and son who assumed he was a burglar. They were charged two months later when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case.
A few days after Arbery’s killing, then-Chief John Powell was indicted along with three former high-ranking Glynn County officers on charges that they ignored an officer’s affair with a drug informant. There also have been claims of unjustified shootings by the department’s officers.
Glynn County Commissioner David O’Quinn said the two organizations assisting in the police chief search have expertise in finding top quality candidates.
