'Former Deputy Sheriff' in Stacey Abrams Ad Never Served in Law Enforcement in Georgia

AP Photo/John Bazemore

A recent ad from a pro-Stacey Abrams PAC features a “former deputy sheriff” talking about how “dangerous” Georgia’s new constitutional carry law is.

I’ve heard the spot on the radio — a lot — but I hadn’t seen video of the ad, which is entitled “Dangerous,” featuring a “former deputy sheriff” identified only as “Dennis” wearing a navy blue jacket and driving around in a car. The vehicle and the outerwear are supposed to make you think he’s actually in law enforcement if you’re not looking closely enough.

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“Dennis” intones the following somber words:

As a former deputy sheriff, I’ve seen all kinds of gun crimes. And I can tell you, Brian Kemp’s new law is dangerous. It makes it easier for criminals to carry loaded guns in public. At the movies. In church. No permit. No background check. And Mr. Kemp, I call that criminal carry. Brian Kemp may talk tough, but he makes us less safe. Because the last place we want more criminals with guns is here [pointing at the school he is standing in front of].

And of course, the only way to avoid this future in which everybody is just shooting up every building in Georgia is to elect Stacey Abrams.

There’s one thing about the ad that’s somewhat disingenuous. Not only has “Dennis” been out of law enforcement for nearly a quarter-century, but he also never served as a sheriff’s deputy in Georgia at all.

“‘Dennis’ is LGBT attorney and Democratic activist Dennis Collard, a Florida native who worked as a police officer in the Sunshine State from 1994-1999, his LinkedIn shows,” as Collin Anderson reports at the Washington Free Beacon. “Collard—who, according to his LinkedIn, uses pronouns he/him—went on to join an Atlanta-based law firm in 2003, roughly 13 years before he founded his own divorce firm in Atlanta.”

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“Collard also filmed an ad for Abrams four years ago, filed a campaign finance complaint against Kemp in 2019, and contributed $500 to Abrams’s campaign in March,” Anderson points out.

Related: The Left Can’t Meme: Stacey Abrams Edition

How telling is it that Abrams had to find someone who hasn’t served in law enforcement for over 20 years and didn’t serve in Georgia to help her push for her policies? It doesn’t come as a shock to members of the law enforcement community in Georgia.

“I’m not surprised by that at all when you’ve got someone who talks about defunding the police. Defunding the police would be the worst thing for anybody to do in our state—it’s just absolutely ridiculous,” Jackson County, Ga., sheriff Janis Mangum told the Washington Free Beacon. “And for somebody to think like that, I don’t know that you’re going to have any law enforcement officers get behind you.”

Abrams has claimed that she wants to give police officers raises if she gets her shot to ruin Georgia, and that’s all well and good until you pair it with her work with the Marguerite Casey Foundation, a far-left group on whose board Abrams serves.

Screenshot from caseygrants.org

The foundation has pushed not only to defund the police but to abolish the police. It’s no wonder Abrams is having a hard time garnering support from Georgia’s law enforcement community.

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Abrams is also having to go out of state for donors. Only 14% of her donations have come from within the state, compared to Gov. Brian Kemp, who has received 83% of his funds from Georgians. Remember that her pitch to ruin — I mean run — Georgia was that the Peach State was such a horrible place to live that Georgians should put her in charge of it. It shouldn’t surprise many people that she’s not as popular with the people of Georgia as she would like you to believe.

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