Attorney for fired SRO says client was scapegoated, Atlanta ISD ‘hired a pervert’

ATLANTA, Texas. (KTAL/KMSS) — A former officer with the Atlanta Independent School District Police Department pleaded his case at a special Board of Trustee meeting, arguing that he was made into a scapegoat and wrongfully terminated.

Hardy Sheppard said he was fired from his position at Atlanta ISD last year following the arrest and conviction of a former coach at the school, Taureaus Maxwell, for indecency with a child.

Sheppard filed a grievance against the Superintendent because he believes that he did everything he required during the investigation. Sheppard’s attorney, Butch Dunbar, said that the administration is really to blame for the situation because of several mistakes including not conducting a proper background check on Maxwell.

“Atlanta unfortunately hired a pervert. They didn’t do a background check on him. They might have done the criminal, they didn’t call his previous in for him, find out he’d been terminated for the same behavior or something like it,” said Dunbar. “They needed somebody to fire instead of firing the people responsible, they went to the guy at the bottom of the ladder, that was Mr. Shepherd.”

Dunbar wanted the meeting to be open to the public, but the board decided to keep it closed.

“I’m thankful that actually they gave us an opportunity to talk, but they wouldn’t let us talk in front of everyone,” said Dunbar.

The board said it was to protect the names of any kids while discussing the case. Sheppard’s side tried to argue that the names of the juvenile victims were already assigned pseudonyms in the case files.

“If you’re going to vote to do these things, you’re going to take these actions, you need to be able to have the gumption to come out and face people. They didn’t want to do that. It didn’t surprise me. People that run from things and blame things on others, they don’t want it in the open,” said Dunbar.

The board voted unanimously to deny Sheppard’s appeal. Sheppard’s lawyer said that during the closed meeting the board argued that Sheppard’s failure to secure Maxwell’s Snapchat records during his investigation was one of the main justifications for his firing. Dunbar argued that a specialized investigator should have been brought on the case earlier to handle this sort of case.

“Snapchat’s very difficult to get hold of, especially if you’re not an investigator and you’ve never done that before. They didn’t give him an opportunity to do it. It was an excuse to terminate him,” said Dunbar.

We reached out to Atlanta ISD and they said that since the matter involves personnel they could not comment further.

Officer Sheppard says he will appeal to the Texas Education Agency next.