Most people have probably flipped a coin to make an insignificant decision—whether to order pizza or Chinese food for dinner, perhaps—but for Georgia hairstylist Sarah Webb, a coin toss was the only reason she ended up in handcuffs.
It all started on April 7, when Webb blew by Roswell police officer Courtney Brown. Upon pulling Webb over, Brown was aggressive from the start, asking hypothetical questions that Webb cannot answer; she brings the stylist to tears in less than a minute.
Brown returns to her patrol car, where she consults her partner, Kristee Wilson, and explains that she had to “get up to 90” to catch up with her, but had no speed detection to chart Webb’s actual speed. Wilson suggests several different ways that Brown could finagle a ticket out of the situation, but Brown seems unsure. As Brown struggles to get her computer working, she asks Wilson for guidance. Wilson asks her if she wants the “Atlanta answer or the Roswell answer?” When Brown doesn’t reply, Wilson takes out her phone, giggling, and says, “Hold on.”
Wilson then presents Brown with a “coin flip” app on her phone. When Brown asks what it is, Wilson says “A, head, R, tail.” (“A” is for arrest, and “R” is for release.) It comes up tails, which should have, in this devious game, meant that the driver would be released, but Wilson tells Brown to arrest her anyway. Brown says, “Aight,” laughing, and takes notes from Wilson on how to write the tickets, since she’s never done one before.
She then promptly puts Webb into handcuffs. Brown then aggressively pats Webb down, including her breasts, in front of male officers, before putting her into the back of the car, where Webb understandably cusses a bit while sobbing.
Watch the video for yourself. It’s ridiculous.
Fast-forward to about two months later. Brendan Keefe, an investigative reporter with Atlanta NBC affiliate 11Alive, received a tip from a Roswell police officer who claimed that the “coin flip arrest” was well-known within the department, but nobody took any action. Keefe reports that neither officers were disciplined until 11Alive reporters began asking questions. Once the media began circling, both officers were placed on administrative leave, though one was permitted to attend classes—to help her train other officers, believe it or not—as recently as Tuesday.
Keefe also reports that Webb, who does not deny she was speeding, attempted to get the video of her arrest through a public information request to Roswell Police, but was denied. As she was in her own car at the time, she had no idea that she ended up in cuffs because of a digital coin toss until Keefe informed her. With 11Alive’s assistance, she was finally able to get the video from prosecutors on July 6.
“I would have probably would have plead no-contest, and I would have paid a bunch of fines, and this would have been swept under the rug, and nobody would have ever known about it.
These people really put my freedom in the hands of a coin flip. And that’s disgusting.”
On Monday, July 9, Webb appeared in court, where prosecutors dismissed all charges against her. Webb reports that the prosecutor told her she “absolutely refused” to prosecute the case.
Roswell Police Department Chief Rusty Grant issued the following statement on Friday:
On April 7, 2018, Roswell Police Officers Courtney Brown and Kristee Wilson made an arrest subsequent to a traffic stop. Brown apparently based her decision to arrest the violator on a coin toss app that was on her cell phone. After I became aware that this incident occurred, I immediately initiated an internal investigation into the matter. I then placed both officers on administrative leave. Since this is an open internal investigation,I cannot discuss the details of the incident until the conclusion of the investigation. This behavior is not indicative of the hard working officers of the Roswell Police Department, I have much higher expectations of our police officers and I am appalled that any law enforcement officer would trivialize the decision making process of something as important as the arrest of a person.
Remember how, when Brown asked Wilson what she should do, Wilson asked her if she wanted the “Atlanta answer or the Roswell answer?” 11Alive’s Keefe learned that both Wilson and Brown were both former Atlanta police officers—and the coin flip method is apparently known as the “Atlanta Way.”