The deputy who racially profiled former Atlanta Hawks forward Mike Scott, leading to the NBA player’s arrest in 2015, has been fired from his job at the Banks County Sheriff’s Office, a spokesperson said Monday.
“Our agency’s recent administrative review of the Scott case ruling has resulted in the dismissal of [deputy] Brent Register from Banks County Sheriff’s Office,” spokesperson Carissa McFadden stated.
“We addressed an issue that was brought to our attention immediately. In the profession of law enforcement, issues will arise in every agency due to an essence of individuals being imperfect. One officer’s actions [do] not reflect the agency as a whole.”
Scott faced the possibility of a 25-year sentence after being found in possession of MDMA and marijuana following a traffic stop in July 2015. But in a ruling last month, judge Currie Mingledorff said that the stop that led authorities to find the drugs was “unjustified” and racially motivated, and that the evidence obtained was thus not usable in court.
The judge discovered that while Banks County is listed as more than 90 percent white, the vast majority of people Register arrested in recent years have been minorities ― a disparity he called “truly shocking” and evidence that Register “did not enforce the law in a racially neutral manner” in Scott’s case.
Mingledorff also said that Register’s account of a high-speed chase outside Atlanta stood “in contradiction to admitted documentary evidence.”
“The court is unable to find that Deputy Register had an objective basis for suspecting the Scott brothers of criminal activity,” Mingledorff wrote in the ruling. “The court therefore finds that the stop was unjustified.”
Scott is currently an unsigned NBA free agent.
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