Police arrest man for stealing Mayor Kasim Reed's political posters
ATLANTA - Atlanta Police say they have arrested a Marietta man for stealing four city posters at the center of a fiery political feud.
Mayor Kasim Reed’s staff created the posters to highlight Mayoral candidate Ceasar Mitchell’s payment of penalties to the state campaign finance commission.
Police say they located Terry Morris at Mitchell’s campaign headquarters. He faces four counts of misdemeanor theft by taking.
August 31st, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed duked it out with Atlanta Mayoral hopeful Caesar Mitchell in dueling news conferences. Mitchell challenging Reed's rush to rebid airport food contracts while still in office and Reed firing back.
But Reed's use of city prepared posters highlighting Mitchell's earlier troubles with the state ethics commission lead to an anonymous ethics complaint filed against Reed's top communications staffers, Anne Torres and Jenna Garland. The complaint alleged that Reed's office used city time and equipment to unleash a political attack.
“I was quite surprised a foam board presentation was prepared and presented in city hall attacking me personally,” said Mitchell.
Then, after we asked the Mayor's office for a comment on the ethics complaint, the Mayor doubled down on his political craps game, displaying those attack boards in front of his office at city hall late yesterday.
City Hall surveillance camera video captured a man police say is Terry Morris, calmly picking up all four posters and walking out with them.
Ceasar Mitchell emailed us to say Terry Morris is an occasional volunteer who was not instructed or authorized to remove the signs.
Mitchell writes it is time to get back to the real issues that are important.