Reidsville Police Department (RPD) Officer Anderson Quinton Deliford, Jr., was reinstated by Reidsville City Mayor Curtis Colwell on September 2, 2022. Colwell disregarded two recommendations to terminate Deliford, one from City Attorney DuAnn Cowart-Davis and one from RPD Chief Stacey Wilds.
Officer Deliford was placed on administrative leave without pay on August 20, according to a press release from Chief Wilds. A pre-dismissal hearing was held on August 31 at City Hall, where Chief Wilds presented a violation statement detailing his reasons for wanting Deliford dismissed. Chief Wilds recalled the following events from 2022 in his statement:
- May 19: Wilds verbally reprimanded Deliford for a reckless driving incident on May 18. Officer Deliford almost caused an accident while traveling down Highway 147. Deliford was trying to respond to a traffic stop while driving without his blue lights, almost hitting a driver head on.
- May 29 to June 7: Deliford wrote four citations for speeding over this period of time. These citations were questioned by the violators in reference to the speed zones written on the tickets. Video footage shows Deliford writing citations for the wrong speed zones. These citations were reduced to warnings, and Deliford was shown the correct speed zones, according to Wilds statement.
- August 5: Deliford stopped a driver for failure to stop at a stop sign. The driver of the vehicle failed to sign the citation, and Officer Deliford charged the driver with failure to comply and cited the wrong OCGA law.
- August 11: Tattnall County 911 dispatched Officer Deliford to South Georgia Bank in reference to an escort. Wilds stated he heard Deliford on the radio respond to the call, but Deliford had not yet arrived on scene after 17 minutes. Chief Wilds responded to the call after this time had passed; Deliford never responded to the call (Wilds referenced Chapter 16V. RESPONDING TO CALLS FOR SERVICE).
- August 15: Officer Deliford received a call in reference to an accident at the red light in Reidsville and another incident involving a traffic stop in need of an incident report. Officer Deliford did not complete these case reports until August 19, which violates Chief Wilds’s rule to have reports turned in by the end of each shift.
- Deliford stopped a Reidsville citizen on August 15 for a stop sign violation. The driver stated he did not run the stop sign, but Deliford issued the driver with failure to stop at a stop sign. After the traffic stop, the citizen followed behind Officer Deliford from the traffic stop to the Food Lion parking lot, where the citizen was stopped and detained for following the officer. The citizen was issued a citation for disorderly conduct and released. Dash camera footage from Deliford’s patrol car led Wilds and City Attorney Cowart-Davis to believe this was not a valid traffic stop. (Officer Deliford was positioned so that he could not see the stop sign.)
- After the incident with the August 15 traffic stop, Chief Wilds called Officer Deliford to write a detailed report concerning the incident, but Officer Deliford failed to answer his phone and never called Wilds back. Wilds finds this act to be insubordination.
- August 16: Reidsville Clerk Karen Johnson advised Chief Wilds that Officer Deliford has not turned in four citations which were written on August 10 and August 11. “There have been several occasions that Officer Deliford has failed to turn in his citations. Also, Officer Deliford would put the wrong driver information on citations and would import the owner’s information instead of the driver’s… He was also told several times to make sure he had the right driver’s information on his citations,” Wilds wrote in his report.
- A citizen provided RPD with Tik Tok videos from Officer Deliford’s personal account which showed him in uniform and on duty engaging in conversation with the public in a a fashion that could be perceived as detrimental to RPD.
Article III, Sec. 3.10 b-c of the Reidsville Code of Ordinances gives the mayor the right to enforce personnel policies and discharge employees: "In addition, the mayor shall be the chief executive officer of said city. He shall supervise and enforce the personnel policies of the city. The mayor shall be responsible for the employment of city personnel and for their discharge. All city employees under the jurisdiction of the mayor and council shall be directly and immediately subject to the mayor. The discharge of any city employee by the mayor may be disapproved and overridden by the vote of three or more members of the council."
Deliford was hired at RPD on November 17, 2021, according to a report from the Peace Officer Standards and Training Council. Before being hired at RPD, Deliford served as a corrections officer at Georgia State Prison (GSP) (May 2008 to January 2012), a jailor at the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) (December 2015 to October 2016), a peace officer at the Walthourville Police Department (WPD) (October 2017 to March 2020), a lieutenant at WPD (March 2020 to June 2021), and a sergeant at WPD (June 2021 to September 2021).
Deliford voluntarily resigned from Georgia State Prison, but he was terminated from LCSO due to repeated attendance issues and false statements, according to LCSO records. While at WPD, Deliford was investigated by the LCSO Internal Affairs.
At WPD, Deliford was promoted in 2020 to lieutenant and was later demoted (disciplinary) in June 2021 to sergeant. He was later terminated in September 2021, mainly due to Deliford being untruthful in his reports, according to a letter from WPD Chief Alfonza Hagan on August 9, 2021.
Reports also detailed several discrepancies with Deliford’s time sheets at WPD, reports of Deliford sleeping in his car while on duty (he did not recall doing so), a report of Deliford taking a long time to respond to a call (he denied this), reports of lying on reports and to officers, and reports of Deliford dealing with his subordinates “in a militaristic manner, which is outside of policy.”