Date of Offense
Offense(s)
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Statement
CLEET Number : 0052433
License Type : Fulltime Peace Officer
License Status : Active
License Effective Date : 01/02/1971
License Expiry Date : N/A
On February 16, 2022, FOX25 News Reported:
Commissioner Michael Walker and his assistant, Neal Locke [no photo availible], were arrested on charges of conspiracy and unlawful use of communications.
Court documents show Michael Walker recorded certain employees inside the Grady County District 1 Maintenance Building. One employee who was targeted was told a recording device was actually a motion detector, court documents allege.
Court documents show the camera recorded two specific employees from March 2021 to December 2021. Both employees were fired at the end of December.
On December 3, a search warrant was executed by law enforcement who obtained the recording device. The OSBI agent in charge of the warrant's execution learned that Walker and Locke were "bragging" to employees about how the OSBI missed the hidden portable audio recorder that was placed inside the Maintenance building, according to court documents.
Walker was arrested in May 2021 on a charge of embezzlement. OSBI agents say Walker embezzled thousands of dollars in county funds to make improvements to the private road he lives on.
Walker was released on his own recognizance shortly after his arrest and has kept his job as county commissioner since.
Among the new charges filed for Walker are a charge of intimidating witnesses.
Two employees at the Grady County District 1 Maintenance building say they were intimidated by Walker after his embezzlement arrest and before they were fired in December.
Court documents show Walker told an employee that when he filed to run for office again, he would fire "all who crossed him".
Court documents also allege Walker told a job candidate he would fire a certain employee for "stabbing him in the back."
Neal Locke, Walker's assistant, is facing three charges: 2 for unlawful use of communications and one charge of conspiracy. Court documents allege Locke was the one who placed the hidden recording device in the Maintenance building.
Walker's embezzlement case has not yet gone to trial. In October, the judge over the case recused himself. A new judge was assigned to the case in December.
Neal Locke's case [Grady County CF-2022-00037] is still pending with a potential 2023 trial.
We will not stand by as our brothers and sisters are brutalized, criminalized, and silenced.
We reject a world where the powerful profit from our poverty and our lives are treated as expendable. We will not wait for justice to be handed down from above.
We will organize, resist, and take it for ourselves.
WE ARE NO LONGER ASKING...
#ReformIsNotARequest
