A former Georgia sheriff’s deputy, who has already pleaded guilty to a federal weapons charge, had also previously bragged about assaulting a Black person and wanting to charge Black people with felonies, so they wouldn’t be able to vote.
According to CNN, the Justice Department announced that the former deputy, 28-year-old Cody Richard Griggers, entered a guilty plea on Monday of unlawfully possessing an unregistered firearm.
Griggers’ attorney Keith Fitzgerald told CNN that his client was remorseful after failing to register his firearms. But Fitzgerald also criticized the government for including information in court documents that suggested his client was a White supremacist.
“Those inflammatory allegations are merely that — allegations,” Fitzgerald said.
In an affidavit supporting the government’s criminal complaint against him, an FBI agent highlighted a series of messages allegedly written by the former deputy that depicted hatred towards African Americans and the LGBT community while also speaking positively about the Nazi holocaust.
Griggers reportedly sent text messages in 2019, in which he described using excessive force against a person of color, saying, “I beat the s*** out of a [n-word] Saturday.”
“Sheriff’s dept said it look [sic] like he fell,” Griggers added proudly, saying the beating was “sweet stress relief.”
The federal complaint also detailed another incident in which Griggers talked about his intentions to purposefully charge Black people with felonies to keep them from voting.
According to the FBI, Griggers texted, “It’s a sign of beautiful things to come,” and also wrote, “I’m going to charge them with whatever felonies I can to take away their ability to vote.”
