Chattooga County Sheriff Asks GBI to Conduct Independent Investigation of State Line Road Incident

Lina PortmanMay 30, 2024

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On Tuesday, May 28 at 2:46 p.m., Chattooga County Sheriff Mark A. Schrader released the following statement: “In the interest of public transparency, I have formally requested that the GBI conduct an independent investigation into the recent incident occurred in the state. Line road. My office is still continuing its internal investigation and assessment of this incident.

The incident on State Line Road occurred on Thursday, May 16 after 7:30 p.m.

Sheriff Schrader released his first statement regarding the incident on Saturday, May 25 at 4:26 p.m.

“An internal assessment of deputies’ use of force is underway to ensure deputies acted within our policies,” Schrader said.

Regarding the Chattooga County Sheriff's Office's internal investigation, Schrader said, “We will gather all the facts in this case, the videos, the reports, the statements, the witness interviews, etc.” Once this investigation is complete, we will review all information and look at the actions and force used by the deputies. We then evaluate this information with respect to our policies.

When asked for a timeline of the investigative process, Schrader responded, “I'm sorry but I can't provide a timeline.” Deputy Chief Woods began gathering information the day after the incident.

Use of force policies were not available on the Chattooga County Sheriff's Office website because the website indicates an error. (

AllOnGeorgia requested a copy of the use of force policies from the Sheriff's Office, but at the time of publication, the requested policies had not been received.

AllOnGeorgia also sent an open records request for body camera footage of deputies involved in the incident. Sheriff Schrader quickly responded: “This case is still open, so any documents or videos (minus the initial incident report) cannot be released in the open records at this time.”

For more on the State Line Road incident: