Three Georgia citizens are implicating Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens of breaching their cost-free speech civil liberties, affirming in a legal action that he silenced their crucial point of views on Facebook adhering to a viral event in which he called replacements to a Burger King over a messed up order.
The lawful declaring in united state District Court checklists David Cavender– a Republican that unsuccessfully ran versus Owens for the constable setting this political election period– as one of the complainants.
“Defendant Craig Owens was displeased that certain persons, including the Plaintiffs, were publicly criticizing his performance as the Sheriff of Cobb County, Georgia,” the claim states. “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.”
An lawyer created that in October, in the weeks leading up to Election Day, a video clip that arised of “Owens utilizing Cobb County Sheriff deputies to intercede in a personal dispute with Burger King employees became viral” which the complainants “had been leveling harsh criticism against Owens” over it and various other issues.
GEORGIA CONSTABLE CALLS DEPUTIES FOR AID AFTER BECOMING DISTRESS THAT HAMBURGER KING OBTAINED HIS ORDER INCORRECT
CHECK OUT THE DECLARING LISTED BELOW. APPLICATION INDIVIDUALS: CLICK HERE
In that March 2023 event, 3 replacements were sent off to the lunch counter in Mableton with alarms blasting.
“Hey, do me a favor. I need to get, all I need is the owner name of whoever owns this damn facility or the manager,” Owens is listened to informing one replacement that turned up on scene.
“I wanted her [to get his female passenger] a Whopper, no mayo, cut in half, right?” he proceeded.
The constable included: “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.”
The claim states onOct 29 of this year, Owens implemented “sweeping restrictions” over that can publish talk about the Cobb County Sheriff Office’s Facebook web page.
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Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens called his replacements to the Burger King on Veterans Memorial Highway in Mableton on March 4, 2023. (Cobb County Sheriff’s Office)
“On information and belief, these restrictions were put in place because of the viewpoint of commenters’ posts grew increasingly critical of Owens and his performance as Sheriff; in other words Owens put the restrictions in place to prevent the expression of a viewpoint,” the claim states, including that a few of the blog posts made by the complainants were removed or concealed by the Sheriff’s Office Facebook account.
The Sheriff’s Office after that created onNov 1 that it is “committed to providing a safe and respectful space on our social media channels.
“To maintain our blog posts concentrated on area safety and security updates and academic details, we have actually switched off the remarks attribute,” it added.
The lawsuit is asking a judge to ” state the activities of Defendant Owens … to be view-point based limitations in infraction of the First Amendment”, prohibit his ” illegal technique of vindictive censorship” and to prevent him ” from removing remarks, obstructing posters, or limiting commenters to those that are pals or referenced within blog posts,” among other damages.
The lawsuit against Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens states the plaintiffs posted critical comments of him online following an incident involving the sheriff at a Burger King in Georgia last year. (Getty Images)
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Both the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office and the law firm that filed the lawsuit did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
Fox News’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.
