Someone broke into commissioner Mo Ivory’s offices inside the Fulton County Government Center in late December or early January, rifled through confidential papers and stole documents and other items.
Ivory told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday that the incident unfolded over the holidays and the intruder must have known a code to access the temporary offices she and members of her staff were using on the third floor of the government center. She added that county Police Chief Wade Yates told her someone manually turned off surveillance cameras.
“I think it was an inside job,” Ivory said.
Ivory speculated the intrusion may have had to do with her decision to run for chair of the Board of Commissioners in this year’s election.
“This has never happened until the climate became heightened, when people began to realize that I was going to run for chair,” said Ivory, who said she plans to qualify Friday.
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
Incumbent Chairman Robb Pitts and Fulton Commissioner Marvin S. Arrington Jr. both qualified to run for chair of the commission Monday. Ivory did not accuse any specific person of committing the break-in, but did say she suspects the intruder was someone who works in the government center on Pryor Street in downtown Atlanta.
“Definitely somebody had to have had the inside code and then went to the server room and unplugged the cameras,” she said. “So we can’t see who it was.”
County officials confirmed the police investigated a theft of personal papers and a book from the District 4 offices. The incident was reported after Ivory’s staff returned Jan. 3 to the offices from the holiday break. The investigation was closed with no suspect identified because of a lack of conclusive evidence, a county government spokesperson said in a statement.
“During the course of this investigation, officers discovered that security cameras on the third floor located outside the commissioners’ temporary offices were not operational at the time of the incident,” the statement said. “Our review did not conclusively determine the cause of the disruption to the cameras, which could have been attributed to a number of different causes. Cameras were immediately reactivated.”
The statement added that no other such incidents have been reported.
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
Ivory’s chief of staff, Maria Banjo, characterized the missing papers as “strategic planning-type documents … regarding arguments that were to be made, why we’re pushing what resolutions forward — really strategy.”
County officials said the offices of several commissioners had been moved temporarily to the third floor so that their 10th-floor offices could be renovated.
Ivory said she is calling for a new investigation by another law enforcement agency and a “more concerted effort to find out what’s going on.”
“Obviously,” she said, “everybody deserves to be safe when they come to work.”
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