A county sheriff in Georgia is currently under fire for having what is possibly one of the most extra and potentially dangerous over reactions ever. Cobb County sheriff called for backup in a Burger King drive-thru because the workers got his order wrong.
The story comes to us by way of Atlanta’s WSB-TV. In a prime example of how police departments shield their own, the incident happened last year but the details are just now coming to light. Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens Sr. went to a Burger King in Mapleton, Georgia, in March 2023. Owens ordered a Whopper for his wife with no mayo and asked workers to cut the burger in half, which is apparently something that they didn’t do. So Owens called for backup.
In body cam footage provided to WSB by the Cobb County Sheriff’s office — and shared online — an officer can be seen walking up to Owens in his pickup truck. Owens then says to the officer “Hey, do me a favor. I need to get, all I need is the owner name of whoever owns this damn facility or the manager. 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.” The officer doesn’t object to Owens’ instructions, he just does as he’s told.
The footage then shows three officers walking up to the Burger King but discovering the doors had been locked; the employees were scared with the sudden police presence and had locked themselves inside. Eventually they open up and speak to the assistant manager. “Nobody is in trouble we just want to get some names,” the officer can be heard saying. The officer continues by explaining that it’s for the man outside who wants the information to “file a complaint for his food.”
The officers get the information and take it back out to Owens. The officer explains to him that the workers were scared and had locked the doors. Owens laughs asking if they had told the workers who he was before the officer answers that they didn’t. WSB says the footage has been making its rounds online after being posted by Owens’ opponent in the upcoming sheriff’s election David Cavender. Voters the station spoke with are shocked. A man who Cavander plans to hire as his chief deputy called what Owens did an abuse of power.
Owens doesn’t seem to have an issue with what he did, even going so far as saying the whole situation has been “politicized in an attempt to win votes.”
“I was not in my uniform, and at no point in my interaction with the staff did I identify myself as a member of the law enforcement community. 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 said.
However in an updated interview with WSB from October 14, Owens took a slightly different tone about what happened. He claims that he asked for no mayo on the burger because his wife is allergic to it but that they still added it. So he asked to speak to the manager about it. He claims he asked for both a solution and a refund but was denied both by the restaurant’s management. Claiming that the drive-thru window was slammed shut in his face, Owens says that’s when he called for backup. “I thought the best thing to do was to call a deputy. In hindsight, I probably should have just drove off and took the bad service and left and came back another day,” Owens told WSB.
