(The Center Square) – The DeKalb County Police Department has fired a veteran officer for telling a transgender library patron to stay out of the women’s restroom, according to internal records obtained by The Center Square.
The records also show that the officer, who faced public accusations of “transphobia,” got involved that day because a woman with two children complained to a library security guard about a man being in their restroom, according to the security guard’s account to police contained in the investigative file.
Speaking for the first time about the incident to The Center Square, former Officer Glen Weaver was unrepentant.
“There were women and children in the bathroom when he was in there,” Weaver said. “If I was a father, and I had my daughter going to the bathroom, and I’m waiting for her to come out and this dude comes walking into the bathroom – there would have been an issue.”
The incident happened Oct. 20 at the Tucker-Reid H. Cofer Library, in Tucker, while the library was functioning as an early voting site. After exiting the women’s room and sitting down at a computer desk, Sasha Rose Swinson – a natal male who identifies as female – claimed a uniformed DeKalb County officer approached saying, “Excuse me, sir.”
According to Swinson, the officer made a embarrassing scene in earshot of other library visitors, with a directive to use the men’s restroom or the unisex family restroom in the future.
In a recorded interview with police Internal Affairs, Swinson quoted the officer saying, “That’s the women’s restroom and you’re not a woman. That’s obvious.
“It was just really shocking to hear practically every transphobic trope under the sun thrown at me in the space of about 30 seconds,” Swinson said in interview with The Center Square. “His words are still ringing in my head.”
Swinson complained to the library, which passed the complaint along to the county and the chief of police. The story circulated through the Atlanta news media late last year. The county’s top elected official, CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, called the matter a “teachable moment” in a statement to one TV station, saying, “DeKalb County strongly supports our LGBTQ+ community, and we embrace the right to express one’s sexual orientation and gender identity.”
Asked why the officer’s suggestion to use another bathroom wasn’t an option, Swinson balked at the question, saying that’s asking to “justify my existence.”
“And I’m not going to do that,” Swinson said. “I’m not going to think of myself as less of a person just because I’m different.”
Swinson told reporters last year that getting Weaver fired wasn’t the goal. Informed by The Center Square that the officer did lose his job, Swinson said, “I’m actually a little saddened by that.
“But again, if it inures to people’s benefit, if he’s not around to harass the next trans person he sees, I suppose that’s all for the good,” Swinson said.
Weaver – deemed “guilty of transphobia” by one blogger’s headline – never spoke out in his own defense until now.
“Cops are supposed to have tough skin, right?” he said. “But I don’t like being accused on nationwide TV of false accusations.”
Weaver admitted asking Swinson to use a different restroom, but insisted that he was calm, polite, whispering and discreet. He denied saying it was “obvious” Swinson isn’t a woman. The interaction wasn’t recorded on bodycam. Weaver said he was having a technical problem and hadn’t yet taken the camera to the department to be serviced.
To learn the outcome of the case, The Center Square requested all records of the Internal Affairs investigation through the Georgia Open Records Act. The files, produced late last month, revealed Swinson’s complaint cost the officer his job.
Weaver, 70, said he served the department for 28 years before retiring and becoming a part-time reserve officer. DeKalb’s elections department was paying him $60 per hour to work at the library during advance voting, the records show. He said he’s also been cut off from security jobs working for film crews making movies and commercials in the Atlanta area. He said he still has his $3,400 per month county pension, though, and he still teaches firearms classes to airline pilots.
“It hurts,” Weaver said. “Those movie jobs were paying 70 bucks an hour, and I was doing traffic.”
Security guard: A mom complained
The records also show that Weaver didn’t approach Swinson of his own accord, but rather because a library security guard believed a biological male using the women’s restroom was making females uncomfortable.
DeKalb County Library Security Officer Victor Reed said in his statement to Internal Affairs that Swinson entered the ladies’ room with two women and two children already inside. Shortly after, one woman came out and “shook her head.” A few minutes later, a mother with two kids emerged, Reed said.
“She had a look on her face like something was wrong,” the security guard told investigators. “She stated that, ‘How can we allow men to go into a women’s restroom?"”
Reed said the police officer apparently overheard this conversation, as the security guard explained to the mother that the library system has no policy on who can use which restroom. Reed declined to speak with The Center Square for this story.
“The lady mumbled something under her breath and just dashed out the door,” he told investigators. “She was (angry).”
In fact, not only does the library system allow patrons to use whichever bathroom “aligns with their gender identity,” but DeKalb County passed an ordinance in 2023 forbidding discrimination based on “perceived gender-related identity.” Georgia has a state law against boys in girls’ sports that also requires separate restrooms and separate changing rooms for males and females in school facilities, but that doesn’t cover public libraries.
“I think he did the right thing – he stood up for truth, he stood up for reality, he stood up for common sense,” Beth Parlato, senior attorney for the Independent Women’s Law Center, told The Center Square. “And the rest of these people are standing behind this stupid ordinance to protect a person who has no business being in a girls’ bathroom.”
The account of a woman complaining – also new news to Swinson.
“Nobody ever told me that, in the entire extent of this investigation,” Swinson said. “That’s the basic problem right there, is they’re viewing me as a male when I’m not, for all intents and purposes.”
The internal investigation faulted the officer not only for engaging Swinson without legal justification, but also failing to activate his bodycam, failing to obtain permission from the department to work at the voting site, and failing repeatedly to check in with dispatch before working in uniform.
It was his first time for each violation, the file says. Weaver’s immediate supervisor recommended a write-up, noting that under the department’s progressive discipline guidelines, first offenses call for “written counseling.”
But Maj. Theodore Golden, Assistant Chief Lonzy Robertson and Police Chief Greg Padrick all overrode that, recommending termination. All three declined interview requests. The police department issued a written statement saying that “any misconduct that warrants disciplinary action is grounds for removal” from the reserve and retired officers program.
“Because we’re in a woke type of environment, this came from up top,” Weaver said. “They just wanted for me to just go away.”