Duration and parties are not privileged. The law firm has already filed a second records request for all communications between elected officials and county council regarding the incident. The records response goes out just before the deadline. Incident reports, dispatch log, evidence intake, no body cam footage. The department claims it is part of an ongoing internal review and therefore exempt.
The attorneys file an emergency motion in superior court challenging the exemption. They argue the exception does not apply when the footage is of the incident being complained about and that no formal internal investigation was even open. Judge Simone Harper reads the motion, hears argument, and orders the footage released within 48 hours. The stay is denied. The body cam footage runs nearly an hour.
The attorneys watch it twice. Key moments stand out. After Selden confirms the registration is clean, Rowe says, “Run it again. Something's off.” When Amina cites the warrant requirement for trunk searches, Selden looks down at her phone in the background, then looks up with an expression that is not quite neutral.
She does not intervene. Immediately after the zip tie is applied, the footage shows the restraint tighter than policy allows for a non-resisting subject. No officer checks circulation. In the cruiser, Rowe makes a call on his personal cell phone, not radio. The body cam captures his side only.
“Yeah, clean registration, but the girl's a minor with a learner's only. Just run the father's name. There's something off about this. Yeah, tonight.” The call happens before booking, before any detective query, before Brooks runs the federal check. Someone already wanted the father's name run.
The question of who he called remains open, but the footage itself is authenticated and enough. The internal affairs hearing is scheduled for weeks later under Georgia post procedures. Hearing examiner Denise Okafor, known for thoroughness and little patience for games, presides. Officer Cedric Rowe and Lena Sheldon are placed on administrative leave. Their union attorney Tompkins tells them separately that the email and body cam footage together create a significant evidentiary problem.
Rowe insists he was doing his job, that the call was real and everything followed procedure. Tompkins asks who he called from the cruiser that night. Rowe says it was personal. Tompkins asks again. Rowe says he does not remember.
Tompkins closes his folder. “Cedric, the number is on the tower log. They will have it within the week. You need to be ahead of this.” Amina is in AP chemistry when she receives the text confirming the hearing date. She reads it under the lab table, then finishes her titration with the same focus calm she brings to everything.
After school, she sits in the car for a few minutes before starting the engine. She is not crying. She is not relieved. It is the particular feeling of a process being validated, something harder to name than relief, carrying the knowledge that Sims still wears his badge, that Lang has gone quiet, and that somewhere a cell number on a tower log still has no explanation. At home, her father sits at the kitchen table with a printed document from the law firm.