atlanta — Three Georgia State Patrol troopers who intentionally rammed vehicles or performed other maneuvers to stop vehicles during pursuits later sought payouts from the other driver’s insurance, claiming personal injuries to supplement their paychecks, an internal investigation found.
The three troopers and their supervisor were fired for violating Georgia Department of Public Safety policy and ethical standards, the agency said in a news release. The investigation began in January after another soldier said he heard comments and jokes about recent pursuits that would qualify for “screening” and told his supervisor.
After using their patrol vehicles to stop a pursuit — including a “precision stabilization technique,” or PIT maneuver — troopers send crash reports to a designated private attorney who would file a personal injury claim, the department said. The soldiers will then get the money when the insurance company settles the matter out of court.
According to the investigation, Troopers Hunter Waters, Tyler Byrd and Isaiah Francois, all stationed in southeast Georgia, participated in the alleged scheme.
Their supervisor, Sgt. Investigators found that Joseph Curley also asked an attorney to file suit on his behalf but received no compensation. Curley told investigators he did not believe the practice violated department policy, adding that he believed the soldiers were acting like ordinary citizens.
The Associated Press was unable to find valid phone numbers for any of the four soldiers, and it was not clear whether any of them had hired an attorney who could comment on their behalf.
The investigation found that Waters, who had been a trooper since February 2018, was the first state trooper to engage in the practice, and he told the other two about it. He told investigators that a sheriff’s deputy told him about hiring an attorney to file a claim against the driver’s insurance company. He said that prompted him to withdraw crash reports from chases he was involved in and to ask the same attorney to file claims on his behalf.
His claims cited insomnia, pain, anxiety and stress. The attorney sent him eight claim letters and, at the time of the investigation, received $25,000 for each of the three claims with the attorney receiving one-third of that payment.
Byrd, who started working for the State Patrol in January 2022, told investigators that he received two $25,000 settlements and that the attorney kept a third settlement. He and the others saw the claims as “a way to make money in addition to a salary,” he told investigators.
Francois, who has been a trooper since July 2023, has not yet received any payments, but was expecting $25,000, minus one-third of the attorney, after receiving an insurance company-signed settlement release from the attorney, according to a summary of the investigation report obtained through an open records request.
Francois told investigators that he saw “no ethical violation” in requesting the payments.
Five demand letters sent to insurance companies on behalf of Byrd and Francois that were provided to investigators did not state that they were law enforcement officers or that the vehicle-to-vehicle contact occurred as part of their job. No medical bills, care claims or details about the injuries are included, but the letters claim that the “injuries, pain, suffering and damages” would exceed the limits of the insurance policy, the summary says.
The report notes that for each of the five claims, insured drivers were charged with driving under the influence of alcohol. Troopers told investigators that an attorney would review crash reports to determine which reports could be used to file claims.
The Department of Public Safety Policy says employees cannot seek compensation from activity related to their official duties without permission from the commissioner. No officers or commissioner were ever told about the demand letters, the summary says.
The brief also says the practice appears to amount to a conflict of interest with troopers’ law enforcement duties and that seeking personal compensation for pursuits and stops “subjects the entire department to a damaged reputation, a disgraced image, and a lack of public confidence.”