A former Clayton County schools bodyguard is back in jail for a second time.
This time, Kenneth Jerome Alexander showed a badge and told officers he was a police officer, Clayton County Police Officer Otis Willis III told the AJC on Wednesday.
But officers quickly learned Alexander was fired from his police job six years ago. Alexander, 47, is now in jail, charged with impersonating an officer.
Clayton police were called to Alexander’s Jonesboro home on Tuesday afternoon for a report of a domestic dispute. Police received a 911 phone call and could hear a woman in the background shouting, "get up off me, get up off me," Willis said.
Officers tracked the call to Alexander’s home and found the couple arguing.
“When he first met the officers, he advised he was a Jonesboro police officer,” Willis told the AJC. “He showed a Jonesboro badge in his wallet and a drivers’ license photo with a police uniform on.”
After seeing no injuries on the woman, police left the house and called Jonesboro police to verify that Alexander was an officer, Willis said.
That’s when officers learned that Alexander had been fired from the police department in 2004. Police returned to Alexander’s home, arrested him and seized the badge, Willis said.
“Since he is not actively sworn and not employed as a peace officer, he’s not a peace officer,” said Ryan Powell, operations director for the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council.
It’s unclear why Alexander still had a badge.
Court records show Alexander was charged with four counts of child molestation and two counts of enticing a child after he allegedly inappropriately touched two female students while working as a school resource officer at Jonesboro Middle School.
In 2007, while Alexander’s case was still pending, a Clayton school board member hired Alexander as a bodyguard for former superintendent Gloria Duncan. School officials later fired Alexander after learning about the pending child molestation charges.
The child molestation charges were later dismissed, but the Georgia POST still voted to revoke Alexander’s police certification. Alexander has since filed an appeal and the case is pending with the Attorney General’s Office, Powell said Wednesday.
Alexander’s lawyer, Lee Sexton, did not immediately return phone calls Wednesday.
Alexander’s employment as a school bodyguard was cited as one of a series of problems plaguing Clayton schools when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools revoked the district's accreditation.
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