On May 31st a civilian was at Cobb County Jail visiting a friend when an arrest occurred outside. He began filming with his cell phone. One police officer responded by pointed his handgun at the civilian and ordered him to stop filming and to go back inside the jail. Once inside a detective and other police officials approached him and coerced him into handing over his phone so they could copy the footage, threatening him with arrest if he didn't comply. After getting his phone back from the detective he found that the footage had been deleted off of his phone.
Copwatch of East Atlanta filed Open Records Applications for surveillance footage from outside the jail on as well as any footage acquired by detectives from civilian cell phones that day. Cobb County Officials refused to hand over any footage citing pending prosecution of the individual arrested that day. However they also denied that any bystander cellphone footage had been acquired by detectives at the jail.