Despite multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, Georgia officer remains on the force

The TBI is investigating an officer-involved shooting in Cookeville.
The TBI is investigating an officer-involved shooting in Cookeville.

The continued employment of an Atlanta police officer with a checkered personnel file -- including multiple accusations of sexual assault -- is raising new questions about how such cases were handled by previous administrations.

Channel 2 Action News, acting on a tip, obtained Sgt. Byron Rainey's personnel file and uncovered a litany of accusations against the veteran officer, who joined the force in 1995.

Rainey first made headlines two years later when he was reprimanded in a highly publicized beating of a motorist who had driven through a police roadblock. But his troubles didn't stop there.

In 2009, Rainey, then a supervisor in the city's 'Zone Four,' was accused of sexually assaulting two women in separate incidents just one week apart. Internal affairs investigators recommended his dismissal, but then-Police Chief George Turner overruled them, suspending Rainey for eight days.

"If you look at the history of the Atlanta Police Department, I fired more police officers for truthfulness during my tenure than any other police chief in our history," Turner told Channel 2 Action News. "There had to be a reason I did not sustain. I do not have access to the files to review it."

The victim in one of those two incidents said Rainey "put his hands in my pants and fondled me and went up to my shirt, under my shirt (and) fondled me."

"I don't want him to be able to do it to nobody else," the victim told Channel 2.

Rainey would be suspended again in 2013 for four days after an APD co-worker accused him of showing her an inappropriate image of a sex act.

He would later receive another four-day suspension after his brother, Kevin Rainey, arrested a suspect inside the Wal-Mart on Martin Luther King Drive, which had contracted with Byron Rainey's private security firm. Kevin Rainey used his brother's badge to make the illegal arrest and was sentenced to three years of probation in August by Fulton County prosecutors.

Despite those red flags, Rainey remains on the force. He declined Channel 2's request for comment.

In a statement, current APD Chief Erika Shields acknowledged Rainey's disciplinary record is "far from exemplary" but said she "respects her predecessors who handled the files, and trusts that there was appropriate reasoning behind the disciplinary actions that were carried out."

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