Georgia officer under investigation after exposing superior’s second DUI arrest

Officer Brian Bolden alerted reporters last month to the arrest of the Dunwoody (Georgia) Police Department's public information officer – the spokesman's second drunken driving case in five years.

On Wednesday, it was Bolden, a prison transport officer for the suburban Atlanta department, who was in trouble. Police Chief Billy Grogan sent a supervisor to Bolden's house to let him know the chief placed him on paid administrative leave. 

Grogan told Bolden in a letter that he asked an outside agency to investigate whether Bolden abused his power and broke other department rules, including policies against public criticism and computer invasion of privacy.

"They're going to fire me," Bolden told Paste BN in an interview on Wednesday. "This is what they wanted to do all along. And to be honest with you, I'm relieved. Every day, I was going to work wondering how they were going to try to get me, and now it's over."

Bolden was featured in a Paste BN investigative series about policing's code of silence, the unofficial but deeply entrenched system in which law enforcement officers have retaliated against officers who make misconduct claims against their co-workers. Bolden and former Dunwoody officer Austin Handle had exposed a sexual harassment scandal involving one of the Georgia police department's lieutenants. Both said they were targeted for retaliation after they spoke out.

Bolden and Handle alleged that the chief's decision to investigate Bolden is continued retribution. Bolden is one of several people who said they faced punishment after their stories appeared in the Paste BN series. Others include an Illinois police officer ousted from his police union and a Louisiana state trooper fired after speaking publicly about the death of a man in police custody.

In his letter to Bolden, Grogan said he asked internal affairs investigators with the nearby Sandy Springs Police Department to conduct the investigation "into certain actions related to [Bolden's] alleged off-duty activity."

Bolden went to the DeKalb County Jail in January while off duty and obtained a booking photo of Robert Parsons, who was a sergeant for the Dunwoody Police Department. Booking photos are a public record that can be obtained by anyone who requests them.

Parsons was suspended for five days in 2018 after a DUI arrest. He pleaded no contest to a reckless driving charge.

According to arrest reports from the second incident, Parsons crashed his car into a telephone pole Jan. 25 and refused a field sobriety test from a Georgia State Police trooper. He resigned after news of his arrest became public. Grogan had placed him on leave and started an internal investigation but closed it after accepting Parsons' resignation.

In an email to Paste BN, Grogan said Friday he couldn't speak about Bolden's case, citing the active internal probe. Parsons did not return a call seeking comment.

Dunwoody is fighting complaints from Bolden, Handle and two other officers who filed claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission tied to allegations that a Dunwoody police lieutenant sent naked photos of himself to other male officers and asked for photos in return. (Bolden and Handle said they never received or sent photos).

Bolden said that after he spoke out against the lieutenant to other department supervisors, the lieutenant tried to launch an internal investigation against him on false claims that he stole an energy bar.

The lieutenant resigned. Grogan concluded he had acted inappropriately but rejected claims that he handed lucrative overtime assignments to the officers who agreed to share photos.

Handle said he was fired a week after he made a post on TikTok saying he and others were going to expose corruption within the department and hinted at the nude photo scandal.

Grogan and city officials said Handle lost his job because he gave conflicting stories during an internal investigation into allegations he had needlessly activated his lights and sirens and sped through a neighborhood on his way to work.

Dunwoody has been fighting Handle's quest for unemployment benefits. Handle said the accusations that he was dishonest have kept him from getting another job in law enforcement. 

Last year, Parsons was named the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police Supervisor of the Year.

After Paste BN’s piece featuring Bolden and Handle, Parsons told the Atlanta Journal Constitution in December that Dunwoody would fight Handle's rights to claim unemployment, even though the state labor board overturned a ruling denying him benefits.

Bolden on Wednesday predicted he will soon face the same fate as Handle. Grogan told Bolden that during his leave, he can no longer publicly identify himself as an employee of the city of Dunwoody. Bolden said that is fine by him.

“I am physically and mentally worn out,” Bolden said. “I’ve been calling in sick. I wake up in the morning sometimes, and I say ‘This is just too much. I can’t go back there again.’”

Daphne Duret is a 2021-22 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow at the University of Michigan. Contact Daphne at dduret@gannett.com, @dd_writes, by signal at 772-486-5562.