A former Atlanta police officer has been arrested in Augusta after allegedly offering a child money in exchange for performing a sexual act, according to court records.
Benjamin Hopson, 34, was booked into the Richmond County jail Saturday on a charge of enticing a child for indecent purposes, jail records show.
According to an arrest warrant obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hopson was driving in an apartment complex around midnight June 1 when he asked a 14-year-old to approach his vehicle “for the purpose of child molestation.”
Hopson, “after noticing said victim walking alone, stopped the vehicle that he was operating and requested for said victim to approach the car,” the warrant states. He then “solicited prostitution, by propositioning said victim to perform oral sex for compensation,” the warrant continues.
According to The Augusta Press, the boy told police that the man who approached him had asked him if he needed money. When the boy said yes, the suspect offered him $200 for the sexual act, the newspaper reported, adding that the teen then ran away and told his mother the next day after spending the night at a friend’s house.
When the boy returned to Westside High School in August, he was shocked to see the suspect working there as a hall monitor, The Augusta Press reported. The school is behind the complex where the incident is alleged to have happened.
Hopson had been working for the school district through a temporary staffing agency, according to the Augusta newspaper.
The Atlanta Police Department said it is “aware of the investigation and criminal charge involving former employee Benjamin Hopson.”
“Hopson had been relieved from duty and placed in a non-enforcement, administrative assignment on May 19, 2023,” the department said in a statement. “More recently, Hopson had been on extended, unpaid leave before being terminated from the department on August 23, 2024.”
APD did not share any other information.
Before his May 2023 reassignment, Hopson worked in the department’s public affairs unit, helping disseminate information to the media and perform other public relations duties.
Spokesperson Chata Spikes declined to specify why Hopson was reassigned or disclose the reason for his termination but said it was related to Hopson’s performance followed by a failure to complete his assigned duties.
The AJC has requested records relating to Hopson’s disciplinary history and reason for termination.
Hopson joined the department in July 2018 after graduating from the police academy, according to records from the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council. Working for APD was his only sworn experience in the state.
While Hopson did not have a prior disciplinary history that had been reported to the council, his law enforcement certification had “lapsed due to training deficiency,” according to POST records. It was not clear when the lapse took effect.
Hopson was regularly featured in the department’s social media posts. In October 2020, for example, he was featured in a recruitment video posted to the department’s Facebook page. He was “one of the many officers on the front line” during the nationwide demonstrations against police brutality after the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.
“Here Hopson discusses the transition to becoming a police officer, how the protests impacted him, and why he loves working with APD,” the post read.
In the video, Hopson shares that he grew up in Augusta and previously worked in the medical field. He chose to switch his career to law enforcement because he “wanted to advance and still be able to help people,” he said.
Speaking of the protests, Hopson said, he felt sad and hurt. “The pressure that my brothers and sisters are going to be receiving for that officer’s (Derek Chauvin) one mistake — it was just a shocking experience to see that officer doing that,” he said. Chauvin is a former Minneapolis police officer and has been convicted of killing Floyd in 2020.
“When I see a bad officer not following protocol and procedures, it disturbs me. I must speak up because it makes us all look bad as one, and that’s not what we strive to do,” Hopson said.
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