A Richmond County School System police officer who reported cheating on the 2024 certification exam was reassigned to the supervision of an officer who is close friends with the sergeant who encouraged the cheating.
According to a report from an external investigation the RCSS outsourced, a whistleblower was allegedly retaliated against by his supervisor after turning her in for encouraging other officers to cheat on online annual certification exams.
Rather than allow the internal affairs division to handle the investigation, the department outsourced the investigation costing tax payers $14,000.
A copy of that report can be read here.
School district superintendent Kenneth Bradshaw and Police Chief Mantrell Wilson refused to answer questions related to the cheating scandal.
MORE: RCBOE police department embroiled in cheating scandal
Officer Whistleblower alleged retaliation by Sgt. Dorothy Holmon, according to the report.
In response to Officer Whistleblower’s complaints of retaliation, Chief Wilson placed Officer Whistleblower under the supervision of Lt. Adrienne Burns.
Burns was interviewed as part of the investigation, but none of her comments are notated in the report. Burns is very close friends with Holman who is alleged to have been the one engaging in retaliation. Images posted online show the two go on vacations together.
MORE: Whistleblower alleges retaliation in RCSS cheating scandal
Currently, Officer Whistleblower is under the supervision of Burns despite her relationship with Holmon.
The decision to discipline the offending officers was left up to a personnel review board, which met in August according to Wilson. The school board has since refused to release the records of that meeting and what decision was made, citing an ongoing investigation.
The Augusta Press has engaged legal counsel to compel the RCSS to provide those records.
Text messages revealed that officers were provided answers via a group text for online classes on de-escalation and human trafficking. Not all of the officers on the group text took the classes in question, but only one officer reported the cheating.
Records from previous years provided by GAPOST show that officers often sign up for the same courses and tests being taken the same day.
The text message chains under investigation don’t prove any officer cheated but rather that two officers in leadership roles encouraged cheating.
The officers included in the group text are as follows:
- Cpl. Kara Anderson Lundy
- Cpl. Anthony DuBois
- Pvt. Kellie Holland
- Sgt. Dorothy Holmon
- Cpl. Brian Jackson
- Cpl. Tajuana Jones
- Pvt. Wallace Lebrane
- Pvt. Gabriel Mendez
- Pvt. Jacquez Williams
