By Rhonda Cook
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — Clayton County Sheriff Kem Kimbrough has had enough of disgruntled employees’ “lies” and he’s going to find them all using his department’s lie detector.
An agency internal affairs investigator will polygraph 40 to 50 employees, trying to find out who is e-mailing the media via anonymous e-mail accounts. So far, Kimbrough said, the department’s polygraph expert had not caught any employees lying.
“We’ve got some people who work up here and are holdovers from the previous administration who have set about their own political campaigns,” Kimbrough told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. “They’re pretty savvy. They have media contacts. They know how to write these press release things. I don’t have trouble with them talking to the media. Just tell the truth.”
Kimbrough said he ordered an internal investigation when reporters called Sunday to check out reports of problems at the jail.
“They were saying we were having riots at the jail. That’s not true,” he said. “They were saying inmates weren’t getting fed, and they are getting fed. It was designed to inflame people.”
Kliff Grimes of Atlanta, a national representative for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, said Tuesday the sheriff is probably justified if employees are spreading false information. “If it’s not true, I don’t see anything wrong in trying to find the people putting the information out there.”
“Lying to the media is just as big an offense as lying to me during an administrative investigation,” Kimbrough said. “Lying is punishable.”