Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens is seen in body camera footage telling a deputy about his wrong order at Burger King outside Atlanta (WXIA).
A Georgia sheriff who called his deputies to help him settle his wrong Burger King order is being sued by three people who say he silenced them for making critical comments about him on the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page in the run-up to his reelection this month.
Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens was seen in police body camera footage complaining to a deputy about his fast food order in March 2023. Critical posts went public on the sheriff’s office Facebook page, and Owens cut them off, deleting and limiting who could post, according to the lawsuit filed on Nov. 13 by three people claiming their First Amendment rights were impinged upon.
“Instead of upholding the First Amendment and stomaching speech he found personally distasteful, Owens decided instead to utilize the powers of his office to censor the speech of Plaintiffs, and others, based on viewpoint,” the lawsuit said.
A media representative from Cobb County declined to comment.
The three plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit are Michele Beagle, David Cavender and Micheal Dondelinger. Cavender and Dondelinger, a retired Cobb County Sheriff’s Office law enforcement official, ran an unsuccessful political campaign against Owens. Dondelinger, who would have been Cavender’s chief of staff, alleges he was prevented from posting critical remarks on the Facebook account.
The lawsuit spells out the controversies that sparked the critical comments and Owens’ alleged actions on Facebook afterward. It all started in October when Owens touted his accomplishments on Facebook, the lawsuit said.
It happened around the same time Cavender posted a video of Owens using deputies on March 4, 2023, to intervene in a dispute at a Burger King in Mableton, northwest of Atlanta, over his Whopper that had mayonnaise on it — even though he had asked for no mayonnaise.
“Rather than simply accept the order, or deal with it himself, he called deputies to have them intercede in the dispute on his behalf,” the lawsuit said.
In the body camera footage, Owens tells a deputy about the wrong order.
“Hey, do me a favor. All I need is the owner name of whoever owns this damn facility or the manager. I don’t need no damn money back no more. I just need to find out who owns this place so I can do an official complaint about the service,” he said.
The Burger King employees locked themselves inside the restaurant, saying they had angry customers previously and didn’t know who this man was. He was not in a marked police vehicle nor in uniform and did not identify himself as law enforcement.
“Nobody is in trouble. We just want to get some names,” a deputy tells the assistant manager. “There isn’t even going to be a report written. That guy out there, he’s just going to file a complaint for his food.”
Dondelinger called it an abuse of power, intimidation and a waste of resources.
“I’m shocked the sheriff feels so flippant about this issue that he would have deputies run lights and sirens, placing citizens at risk and his deputies at risk, just so he could get information from a business owner that clearly could have been followed up on another day,” Dondelinger said.
After the controversy, the sheriff put in place “sweeping restrictions” on all posts made after Oct. 29 when he used Facebook’s “filtering tools” to limit the ability of the public to comment on 11 posts, the lawsuit alleges.
“The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office is committed to creating an informative, safe and respectful space on our social media channels,” a Nov. 1 post on the sheriff’s page read. “To help ensure our posts continue to focus on providing community safety updates and educational information about the Sheriff’s Office and what we do, we have turned off the comments feature. No one will be able to comment on posts although Facebook may display that comments are ‘limited,’ all posts will be restricted from being able to comment. We remain dedicated to keeping residents, visitors, and stakeholders informed while maintaining a respectful online environment[.]”
Owens later said he regretted the ordeal.
“I thought the best thing to do was to call a deputy,” he told local ABC affiliate WSB. “In hindsight, I probably should have just drove off and took the bad service and left and came back another day.”
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