A formal finding that Sheriff Beaumont had conducted a vehicle stop and detention without adequate documented probable cause in a manner consistent with a pattern of behavior identified in the AG’s preliminary inquiry. The determination recommended that Beaumont’s suspension status be continued and that the question of termination be referred to the Board of Supervisors. Given that Beaumont was an elected official, that was a procedural distinction that meant the IA division did not have direct authority to recommend termination in the same way it did for a deputy.
What was absent? Any formal criminal finding. The IA determination was administrative, not criminal. Beaumont had not been charged. Neither had Edson. Neither had Taggart. The IA division had no authority to file charges. That was the DA’s office, and the DA’s office had received the referral and acknowledged it and was, as of the determination date, reviewing the matter.
Reviewing. The word that meant not yet. Maybe. Probably not in the way you want. Tamara read the word and sat with it. She did not expect anything different. She had learned in rooms and corridors in county buildings in four other states that the word reviewing was not a wall. It was a door. And doors required patience and pressure in combination. And she had learned to apply both with the same steady hand she applied to everything else.
She turned to the last page. At the bottom, in the formal determination’s closing language, there was one sentence that had not been in the draft she’d been informally shown by Spates the day before. It read, “The panel notes that the complainant’s documentation in this matter, including contemporaneous written records, body cam footage, carrier records, and dispatch logs, represents an unusually comprehensive evidentiary foundation and that the integrity of this documentation was a material factor in the panel’s ability to reach its findings.” She read it twice. Then she closed the folder.
The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division notified Caldwell County on May 15th. The notification was formal, a letter on DOJ letterhead addressed to the county manager with copies to the Board of Supervisors, the county attorney, and Captain Okafor. It informed the county that the Department of Justice was opening a pattern or practice investigation pursuant to 34 USC Section 12601 into the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office, with particular focus on racially discriminatory enforcement practices related to vehicle stops and detentions on and near Highway 41 in Delwood, Georgia.
The letter stated that a federal monitor would be appointed within sixty days. The investigation was expected to take twelve to eighteen months. Full cooperation was required. Records access would be coordinated through the county attorney’s office.
Spates called Tamara when the letter was made public. “DOJ,” he said. “I saw.” “Twelve to eighteen months.” “I know.” “That’s the long game.” “It was always the long game.” She was in her office, Atlanta, back at her desk, with the window that faced the parking garage. She had been back at the desk since December. The field assessment had been filed. The documentation had been transmitted. The case had moved into its next phase, which was other people’s hands. That was how it worked. You did your part. You handed it off. You went back to the desk.
She said, “Did they appoint a monitor?” “Not yet. They said sixty days.” “When sixty days?” “July 15th.” She wrote it in her notebook. July 15th. Monitor appointment.
“Tamara.” Spates’ voice shifted. The slight register change of a man moving from professional to something adjacent. “This is real.” “What happened in March? The hearing.” “That was real.” “I know.” “Beaumont is off the street.” “For now.” She said it without pessimism. Just accuracy. “The Board of Supervisors meets in June. They’ll decide whether to move toward removing him. That’s a political process. Political processes move at political speeds.”