A Georgia sheriff grew so angry when Burger King messed up his order that he called deputies to the store.
Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens, who is up for re-election this year, called his deputies to the Burger King on Veterans Memorial Highway in Mableton on March 4, 2023, to help address his botched order, according to body camera footage obtained by WSB-TV. Owens' opponent in the upcoming election is slamming the sheriff's actions as an abuse of his position.
Three deputies were dispatched to the fast food restaurant with sirens blaring.
The deputies approached Owens in his truck, who was parked in the restaurant's parking lot. Owens was not in his uniform or in his sheriff's office vehicle.
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"Hey, do me a favor. I need to get, all I need is the owner name of whoever owns this damn facility or the manager," Owens tells one deputy.
"I wanted her [to get his female passenger] a Whopper, no mayo, cut in half, right?" he continued.
The sheriff added: "I don’t need no damn money back no more. I just need to find out who owns this place so I can do an official complaint."
The deputies, without questioning why the sheriff could not ask for the information himself, then approached the restaurant's doors, but the employees had locked themselves inside.
The employees were eventually convinced to open the doors to let the deputies inside.
"Nobody is in trouble, we just want to get some names," one deputy told the assistant manager.
"There isn't even going to be a report written," the deputy said. "That guy out there, he's just going to file a complaint for his food."
After receiving the name of the manager and the company that owns the Burger King store, the deputies left the restaurant and returned to the sheriff.
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A deputy informs the sheriff that the employees were afraid because angry customers in the past have escalated to stalking.
The sheriff laughs and asks, "You didn't tell him who I was, did you?"
"No. I just told him it was the guy out in the truck," The deputy responded.
Owens is up for re-election this year, and his challenger, David Cavender, posted the video to Facebook on Friday.
"I think it’s an abuse of power," Mike Dondelinger, who Cavender plans to tap as his chief deputy, told WSB-TV.
Dondelinger called the incident a display of intimidation and a waste of resources.
"I'm shocked the sheriff feels so flippant about this issue that he would have deputies run lights and sirens, placing citizens at risk and his deputies at risk, just so he could get information from a business owner that clearly could have been followed up on another day," Dondelinger said.
The sheriff, however, claims it was a business dispute that any citizen could make.
"I was not in my uniform, and at no point in my interaction with the staff did I identify myself as a member of the law enforcement community," he told WSB-TV. "At no point did I indicate my position, nor did I ask the responders to do anything that they would not, had not, or have not done for anyone else who makes a business dispute call."
Owens also purports that the incident is being politicized in an election year.
"Whether as a Command Sergeant Major, or a major in the Cobb Police Department, or as sheriff, I have always worked to build confidence and trust in leadership," he said. "To our citizens and residents, it is clear that I need to work harder, and I pledge to do so."
"Anything that takes away from that mission is a distraction, and for that, I am deeply sorry," Owens said.