A police officer dismissed by the Commerce Police Department earlier this year for alleged misconduct has been hired by another North Georgia law enforcement agency.
Jacob Cody Wood, who became the subject of statewide media coverage after he was accused of charging drivers who were not impaired with DUIs, is now employed as a deputy with the Oglethorpe County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff David Gabriel could not be reached despite multiple inquiries for comment.
Wood joined Oglethorpe’s Sheriff’s Office in May, according to Georgia’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Council (POST). Now Habersham has confirmed that POST has an active investigation into Wood stemming from the allegations in February.
“Mr. Wood’s investigation is pending,” said Christopher Lee, an investigator with POST District 7. “I do not have a date on when it will be reviewed by the POST council.”
Fox 5 Atlanta reported in February that Wood “made twice as many DUI arrests in 2023 as the rest of the (Commerce Police) Department combined.” Wood would often charge a driver with DUI/drugs despite the absence of drugs in the vehicle, according to a Fox 5 I-Team investigation, and no drugs or illegal substances were found in the systems of a number of people who submitted to blood tests after their arrests.
More than a dozen DUI cases of individuals who’d been charged by Wood were later dropped by the solicitor’s office, Fox 5 reported.
In 2018, the Oglethorpe County Sheriff’s Office hired former Athens-Clarke County police officer Taylor Saulters, who was terminated by ACCPD after he’d been accused of intentionally hitting a fleeing suspect with his vehicle.
