Former Enigma mayor, clerk sue ex-chief over tracker arrest

ENIGMA, Ga. — The former mayor and city clerk of Enigma have filed a lawsuit against the town’s former police chief, alleging that their arrests were unlawful acts of retaliation sparked by a GPS device attached to the chief’s patrol vehicle.

The civil action was submitted May 10, 2026, to the state court in Berrien County. The plaintiffs — both of whom formerly held offices in this small southern Georgia town — say the chief had them taken into custody after tracking equipment was found near the rear axle of his assigned city car.

According to the complaint, police traced the device to the two officials within days of its discovery. The device, a commercial GPS transmitter, had been sending the vehicle’s location to a mobile phone. Police at the time described it as illegal surveillance. But the plaintiffs argue that the tracker was part of an audit of a taxpayer-funded vehicle, not an attempt to stalk or harass the chief.

The lawsuit names the former police chief as the sole defendant. It accuses him of engineering the arrests, withholding evidence, and using the criminal justice system to punish the plaintiffs for their ongoing questions about police department spending.

The complaint says that, months before the tracker was found, the former mayor had requested mileage logs and fuel purchase records for the patrol car after noticing unusual off-hours activity. The request was never satisfied, according to the suit, and created a hostile relationship with the chief. It was in that context that the tracking device was discovered.

Enigma is a small incorporated town with a population estimated at just over 1,000. The city clerk is the custodian of municipal records, and the former mayor has the authority to inspect city property. The plaintiffs therefore argue their tracking was internal oversight, not private harassment.

The legal issue is nuanced. Georgia law generally forbids installing a GPS device on “another person’s vehicle” without consent. The city-owned patrol car, however, was not the chief’s private vehicle. But courts do not always treat government vehicles as completely open to electronic monitoring. If the chief had a reasonable expectation of privacy because the car was assigned to him for regular use, then the plaintiffs may have violated the state’s tracking statute. If, alternatively, the car is seen as a public asset subject to oversight, the plaintiffs’ actions could be lawful.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Jones (2012) that attaching a GPS tracker to a car by law enforcement physically constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. That principle governs government conduct, not private citizens. In Georgia, private litigants have occasionally been accused of illegal GPS tracking when placing devices on ex-spouses or neighbors. This case appears to be the first in the state to consider whether two town officials can be arrested for tracking a municipal vehicle.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer is expected to argue that the former police chief was both a witness and a complainant, and that he pushed for an arrest without seeking an independent review. The complaint says no search warrant was involved, and that the chief’s own report omitted the open records request. These omissions, the suit says, gave the magistrate no chance to weigh the plaintiffs’ oversight motive.

Meanwhile, the former chief has not yet filed an answer. No defense attorney has entered an official appearance, and the city declined to fund any representation. A discovery conference is scheduled for the coming weeks. The plaintiffs have asked for a jury trial, unspecified damages, and a declaration that the chief’s actions violated their civil rights.

Supporters of the plaintiffs see this as a warning to any local official who dares to audit law enforcement. They say a GPS device on a public vehicle is no different from taking photographs of a pothole or documenting fire truck movements. Opponents argue that secretly tracking the vehicle still crosses a legal line, and that the former mayor and clerk should face consequences even if their intent was good.

In downtown Enigma, reaction remains divided. Some residents say they respect the former chief and believe the arrests were justified. Others, who asked not to be named, say they sympathize with the officials who were trying to check whether a city vehicle was being used during work hours. The case has not yet drawn a response from Georgia municipal legal authorities, but it is likely to be watched closely by government watchdog groups.

With the discovery phase still ahead, both sides are preparing for a legal battle over privacy expectations, the scope of public auditing, and the limits of police authority in small towns.