MACON, Ga. — A sheriff’s deputy in Bibb County, Georgia, has been fired after he was accused of accidentally leaving a pregnant 14-year-old girl in an interrogation room for nearly 24 hours.
According to documents obtained by The Macon Telegraph, the teenager and her boyfriend, who was said to be a “person of interest” in a deadly shooting the night before, were taken down to the sheriff’s office investigative bureau in downtown Macon at around 10 a.m. on March 24.
The summary notes said that the 14-year-old, who said she was seven months pregnant at the time, was later seen in surveillance footage at 7 a.m. the next day in the parking lot outside the building, where she had forced her way out of the locked room, The Macon Telegraph reported.
According to the summary, deputy Omar Sanders told officials that he had “noticed” the girl in an interrogation room, and that he had turned off a camera recording the room before walking the teenager to his office, The Macon Telegraph reported. The deputy told internal affairs investigators that he had asked another deputy to walk the teenager back to the interrogation room while he interviewed someone else.
The Macon Telegraph reports that the internal affairs investigation documents show Sanders repeatedly saying that he had told other officials that the girl could go, and that he “didn’t think about her having to be released to a guardian.” Sanders said he had no idea that the girl was locked in an interrogation room.
The girl, speaking to internal affairs, said that after the sheriff asked her questions in his office, she was left in the interrogation room.
“Didn’t nobody come in there, I ain’t get checked up on,” The Macon Telegraph reported the girl said to investigators. “I was talking to the little (hidden) camera (in the interrogation room); I didn’t know if it was on. I was asking them, ‘Can I call my momma again? Can I use the restroom? I’m hungry.’ I was telling them I ain’t fed my baby ever since Thursday, well, Wednesday. I been here since Thursday morning and I was like, ‘I’m hungry, I’m ready to go.’ I had a meltdown like 3-4 times.”
The girl told investigators she used a chair to damage the door to the interrogation room to free herself, before leaving through a side door and walking to a cousin’s house approximately three miles away.
Bibb County Sheriff David Davis told WMAZ that Sanders violated several policies, including one that required him to check on the 14-year-old every 15 minutes.
“I have determined that your actions and inaction during this incident have fallen short of the standards of the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office and that termination of your employment is warranted and necessary,” Davis said in a letter shared with WMAZ.
A lawyer representing the teenager’s family told the station that they are considering a lawsuit.