A Georgia sheriff up for re-election is dealing with backlash after he tried to make trouble for a Burger King that got his order wrong.
When the fast food eatery screwed up his order, Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens Sr. called in a few deputies, who arrived with their lights flashing and sirens blaring.
The incident happened back in March 2023, but the bodycam footage was only recently obtained by WSB-TV. It was also posted to Facebook by Owens' opponent in the upcoming election, David Cavender.
The footage shows deputies arrived to find the doors to the restaurant locked and Owens sitting in his truck in the parking lot. He tells them he ordered his wife "a Whopper, no mayo, cut in half," but that's not what he got, and when he asked if they would fix his order or give him a refund, he said they refused.
"Hey, do me a favor," Owens, who is off duty and not in uniform, tells the deputies. "I need to get -- all I need is the owner name of whoever owns this damn facility or the manager," who he described as a "straight-up a--."
"That's all I need. I don't need no damn money back no more," he added. "I just need to find out who owns this place so I can do an official complaint, to complain about the service."
The deputies approach the restaurant, but the employees have locked themselves inside. Eventually, the doors are opened and the deputies talk to the workers.
The body camera footage shows a deputy telling the sheriff that the assistant manager said he felt "threatened, that somebody was going to do something to him."
"Like, stalk him or something," another deputy added.
Owens laughs and responds, "You didn't tell him who I was, did you?"
"No. I just told him it was the guy out in the truck," the deputy replied.
Now facing criticism for the questionable use of law enforcement resources and abuse of power, Owens tells WSB-TV he should have handled the situation differently.
"It was about the wrong order, and it would make my wife sick. If she ate mayo she would get sick, so we clearly explained that to him," Owens said, apologizing to "any of the citizens of Cobb County that this has affected negatively."
"I thought the best thing to do was to call a deputy," he added. "In hindsight, I probably should have just drove off and took the bad service and left and came back another day."