Critics accuse Georgia sheriff of silencing them on social media in lawsuit

Three Georgia residents are accusing Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens of violating their free speech rights, alleging in a lawsuit that he silenced their critical opinions on Facebook following a viral incident in which he called deputies to a Burger King over a botched order. 

The legal filing in U.S. District Court lists David Cavender – a Republican who unsuccessfully ran against Owens for the sheriff position this election season – as one of the plaintiffs. 

"Defendant Craig Owens was displeased that certain persons, including the Plaintiffs, were publicly criticizing his performance as the Sheriff of Cobb County, Georgia," the lawsuit says. "Instead of upholding the First Amendment and stomaching speech he found personally distasteful, Owens decided instead to utilize the powers of his office to censor the speech of Plaintiffs, and others, based on viewpoint." 

An attorney wrote that in October, in the weeks leading up to Election Day, a video that emerged of "Owens utilizing Cobb County Sheriff deputies to intercede in a personal dispute with Burger King employees became viral" and that the plaintiffs "had been leveling harsh criticism against Owens" over it and other matters. 

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"Hey, do me a favor. I need to get, all I need is the owner name of whoever owns this damn facility or the manager," Owens is heard telling one deputy who showed up on scene. 

"I wanted her [to get his female passenger] a Whopper, no mayo, cut in half, right?" he continued. 

The sheriff added: "I don’t need no damn money back no more. I just need to find out who owns this place so I can do an official complaint." 

The lawsuit says on Oct. 29 of this year, Owens put in place "sweeping restrictions" over who can post comments on the Cobb County Sheriff Office’s Facebook page. 

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"On information and belief, these restrictions were put in place because of the viewpoint of commenters’ posts grew increasingly critical of Owens and his performance as Sheriff; in other words Owens put the restrictions in place to prevent the expression of a viewpoint," the lawsuit says, adding that some of the posts made by the plaintiffs were deleted or hidden by the Sheriff’s Office Facebook account. 

The Sheriff’s Office then wrote on Nov. 1 that it is "committed to providing a safe and respectful space on our social media channels.  

"To keep our posts focused on community safety updates and educational info, we’ve turned off the comments feature," it added. 

The lawsuit is asking a judge to "declare the actions of Defendant Owens... to be view-point based restrictions in violation of the First Amendment", prohibit his "unlawful practice of retaliatory censorship" and to prevent him "from deleting comments, blocking posters, or restricting commenters to those who are friends or referenced within posts," among other damages. 

Both the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office and the law firm that filed the lawsuit did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Fox News’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.