Cop Fired After Bathroom Showdown

Adriana Stone 0 2 min read

Cop Fired After Bathroom Showdown

This one is simple and sharp. A 70-year-old reserve officer was dropped from the DeKalb County Police Department after a confrontation at a Georgia library bathroom. People are angry. Officials say rules were broken. The fired officer says he did the right thing.

The incident happened at the Tucker-Reid H. Cofer Library in Tucker, Georgia, last October. A mother with two children complained to a security guard that a man was in the women’s restroom. The man identified in reports is Sarah Rose Swinton.

Internal records show the officer confronted Swinson after the complaint. The Center Square obtained the files that led to an Internal Affairs probe and, ultimately, his dismissal from the reserve and retired officers program. The department’s own policy says a first infraction should usually get only a written reprimand. This time, leaders pushed to remove him.

The fired officer, Glen Weaver, doesn’t regret his actions. “There were women and children in the bathroom when he was in there,” Weaver said. “If I was a father, and I had my daughter going to the bathroom, and I’m waiting for her to come out and this dude comes walking into the bathroom – there would have been an issue.”

He says Swinton did not repeat his words accurately and that the media painted him as anti-trans. “Cops are supposed to have tough skin, right? But I don’t like being accused on nationwide TV of false accusations.” Weaver had served 28 years with the department before joining the reserve program.

Security officer Victor Reed told investigators one woman left the restroom after Swinton entered and “had a look on her face like something was wrong.” Reed said the mother who came out “stated that, ‘How can we allow men to go into a women’s restroom?’” He added, “The lady mumbled something under her breath and just dashed out the door. She was (angry).”

The library allows people to use whichever bathroom they choose. A 2023 Georgia law about separate restrooms in schools doesn’t apply to public libraries.

Outside groups weighed in. Beth Parlato, senior attorney for the Independent Women’s Law Center, told The Center Square, Weaver “did the right thing – he stood up for truth, he stood up for reality, he stood up for common sense,” and said library rules protected someone she thought shouldn’t be in a girls’ bathroom.

Swinton said he didn’t even know someone complained. “Nobody ever told me that, in the entire extent of this investigation,” Swinson said. “That’s the basic problem right there, is they’re viewing me as a male when I’m not, for all intents and purposes.”

Maj. Theodore Golden, Assistant Chief Lonzy Robertson and Police Chief Greg Padrick all recommended Weaver be removed from the reserve program despite the policy calling for a written citation for a first offense. Weaver believes the move came from higher up. “Because we’re in a woke type of environment, this came from up top,” he said. “They just wanted for me to just go away.”

The story raises hard questions about safety, policy, and who sets the rules in public spaces. Folks on both sides feel they’re protecting basic rights. For now, a veteran cop is out of the program. The debate is far from over.

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