Auditor Files Notice to Sue Talbot Sheriff’s Department

By JACK BAGLEY
A self-described First Amendment auditor has filed a notice of intent to sue with the Talbot County Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Bobby Gates, Jr., and Investigator Curt Ousley.
Russell Clarence Pickron, 41, of LaGrange, was arrested May 8 at the Talbot County Board of Education after he entered the building and began filming employees while filing a Freedom of Information Act request for his YouTube channel, Georgia Transparency. Employees of the office, disturbed by the filming, called the Sheriff’s Department and Ousley was dispatched to the scene. The investigator interviewed Pickron and members of the school office staff, then arrested Pickron on an initial charge of disorderly conduct. Pickron was taken to the Talbot County Jail, from which he was released later in the day.
Following the arrest, Pickron posted on his channel asking his viewers to “redress their grievances” with the Board of Education and the Sheriff’s Department. Both offices then reported receiving what they called numerous “harassing” telephone calls over the next several days, a phenomenon known online as “call flooding.”
On May 29, a process server representing Pickron delivered a notice of intent to sue to the offices of the Sheriff’s Department for punitive damages of $250,000. The potential federal lawsuit names Gates and Ousley as defendants and calls for the preservation of all evidence from the arrest. No date for a hearing on the lawsuit has been set as of press deadline.