A police officer who is running for elected office in Clarkston has an active theft warrant after being accused of stealing one of his opponent’s campaign signs.
Clarkston police obtained the misdemeanor warrant Tuesday after tying Larry McClam, a Riverdale police sergeant running for Clarkston City Council, to the incident. Investigators said McClam took two planted signs for Dean Moore’s campaign for council and placed them in his marked police vehicle on Sept. 5, according to police reports obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
McClam declined to comment about the warrant and referred the AJC to his attorney, Sarah Flack. In a statement, she said McClam is not guilty, and he will defend himself against the allegations.
On Sept. 7, Moore met with Clarkston police to report that two of his campaign signs, each worth $6, were missing from the intersection of Church Street and Pendleton Avenue. Moore told the AJC and police he placed two signs in front of an auto repair shop with the owner’s permission on Sept. 4, but both were missing the next day.
Moore told police that the only signs removed from the location were his. He also said another one of his signs disappeared in late August.
Surveillance footage from the auto repair shop showed the theft take place just before 6:45 a.m. Sept. 5. According to police reports, the video shows a marked police vehicle pull up, and the driver took Moore’s signs and placed them in the back seat of the vehicle.
While the police markings were illegible in the video, Riverdale police later confirmed to Clarkston police that it was one of their police SUVs. They said it was the vehicle assigned to McClam.
He has been employed by Riverdale police since 2018, according to Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) records. McClam worked with Clarkston police from 2013 to 2016 before voluntarily resigning to join Morehouse School of Medicine’s police department. He has no disciplinary history in his POST record.
Investigators said McClam initially was willing to give a statement to police, but he later retained Flack, who declined to provide a statement to police. Flack’s statement said they’re “fully cooperating with law enforcement every step of the way.”
Riverdale police Chief Todd Spivey told the AJC the department’s policy allows for “an administrative assignment when any employee is accused of criminal misconduct.” He said all employees will receive due process in criminal proceedings, adding that he can’t comment on individual incidents.
McClam and Moore are among seven candidates running for three City Council seats this November. Each race is at-large, so the top three vote-getters will be elected. The other candidates are Yterenickia Bell, incumbent Jamie Carroll, Herbert Clark, Susan Hood and Shana “Tiny” McAllister.
