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Judge names interim DeKalb County Sheriff

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Judge names interim DeKalb County Sheriff

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Ruth Stringer. Photo provided by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office

There’s a new sheriff in town, for the next 40 days at least.

DeKalb Superior Court Chief Judge Courtney Johnson named Capt. Ruth Stringer as the interim sheriff while Sheriff Jeff Mann is suspended for 40 days.

Gov. Nathan Deal suspended the sheriff after an investigation into his arrest for public indecency in Piedmont Park in May. According to a police report, Mann was arrested after an officer allegedly saw him masturbating and walking in the officer’s direction. The report alleges he ran from the Atlanta Police officer before being apprehended. Mann’s office has said the sheriff is “working to clear these charges.” He also suspended himself for one week with pay, May 27 through June 4. The governor-imposed suspension began today, June 13.

Stringer is a 27-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office and began as a detention officer in the county jail in 1990. In 2009, Stringer was recognized with the DeKalb Sheriff’s Medal of Valor. The DeKalb Bar Association named her Officer of the Year after she stopped the assault of a young girl in Stone Mountain Park. According to an Atlanta Journal Constitution report from 2009, Stringer found the man in a bathroom stall with a 13-year-old girl. She ordered the suspect to release the child and he complied. She was off-duty at the time, but she told the AJC, “You’re on-duty 24 hours a day.”

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