In video footage of a high profile attack on an inmate by a police dog one face stood out to me as someone the press should have been talking about. That was the face of Columbia County Jail Commander Tony Weaver. This is something that anyone not familiar with the staff at that facility could easily overlook. Weaver is hard to identify in the video because he is in the dark and as this screenshot shows his features are hard to make out. The beginning of the video provides a more clear picture of Weaver outside of the unit pointing up at the cell where the victim of this vicious attack was. As someone that has done time at CCJ I know who Weaver is and I recognized him right away because he has certain features that stand out. His height and his nose especially.
Why is this important? As Jail Commander, Weaver is a high ranking official in that municipality. That might explain why Columbia County settled the lawsuit. Whenever a municipality is sued for the acts of its employees it almost always can claim immunity. The way such a defense works is by the municipality saying that their policies are perfectly legal and they are not responsible for how low level employees may or may not do things outside of the policy. As a result knowledge of upper management goes a long way in proving that a policy or custom in the municipality exists even if it is not necessarily written down. In this case the presence of the Jail Commander establishes a culture in which none of the jail's deputies would think that it is not permissible to use a police dog in this fashion because even the commander approves of it. This might explain whey the county settled.