Police officers turned on their sirens and raced through red lights in Cobb County after their sheriff administered an urgent call to Burger King, but they were baffled to find their boss complaining about his order when they arrived.
The "infamous Burger King incident" was surfaced when David Cavender, who's running against Sheriff Craig Owens Sr. to replace him, released the body cam footage on his Facebook page.
The Facebook video shows police running red lights and racing through town after Sheriff Owens Sr. dispatched a "speed" to his location. Officers arrived to find the sheriff sitting in his vehicle.
"Hey, do me a favor," Sheriff Owens said to an arriving deputy, according to the footage. "I need to get—all I need is the owner's name of whoever owns this damn facility, or the manager."
The sheriff explained that Burger King employees gave him the wrong order and were uncooperative when he asked them to fix it.
"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 to complain about the service," the sheriff told officers.
The Burger King employees, who were unaware the irate customer was the town sheriff, had closed the fast food restaurant's doors because they felt "threatened" and were fearful the incident would escalate to violence.
Toward the end of the video, the deputy is seen giving the sheriff the manager and owner's contact information.
Sheriff Owens defended his actions by saying he wasn't in his uniform or police car, and anyone could have called in the incident as a business dispute.
"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 told Local 12.
Cavender slammed the sheriff for intimidating the Burger King staff, failing to de-escalate the situation, and wasting three deputies' time, adding "Sheriff Owens is serving himself."
Mike Dondelinger, who's running for chief deputy with Cavender, called the incident an "abuse of power."
"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 wait is over, you’ve heard the rumors of the infamous Burger King incident, well wait no longer. YOU MUST WATCH TO THE ENDSet aside the next 4...
Originally published on Latin Times.
