Atlanta police training academy recruits allege bullying, favoritism, and abuse

ATLANTA — Complaints by Atlanta Police Department (APD) Training Academy recruits alleging bullying, favoritism, and other misconduct have prompted multiple previously unreported investigations and reviews.  

Academy recruits accused instructors of bullying, favoritism, inappropriate relationships with recruits, hazing-like practices, and even gambling on boxing matches between recruits, among other allegations. (Whistleblower letter, p. 10)

"The culture at the APD academy is toxic," recruits wrote in a letter to Atlanta's mayor and chief of police. "Instructors who stick together and cover up the horrific behavior of their own are the norm. Their actions are ignored by those in leadership, and instead of being corrected, they are allowed to pass these same unprofessional behaviors down to others."

The APD acknowledged the allegations and its subsequent investigation only after roughly six months of open-records requests and repeated requests for interviews for this report. Documents acquired via Georgia Open Records Act requests corroborated some of the recruits' allegations. But more than a year after the initial complaints went to the offices of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and APD Chief Darin Schierbaum, the APD declined all interview requests and still has not released the underlying reports or records, despite multiple open-records requests. 

The APD's lack of transparency comes as no shock to Joy Ramsingh, an attorney who serves on the board of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. In 2025, Ramsingh helped win an open-records lawsuit brought by the Atlanta Community Press Collective and Lucy Parsons Labs against the Atlanta Police Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the police department. 

"I think there is a mentality of, 'Well, we keep Atlanta safe, so we're untouchable. How dare you ask? How dare you ask to know what we're doing?'" Ramsingh said in an interview last week. 

Under state law, documents, reports, and electronic communications generated during the operation of government agencies are considered public records. According to the state's website, "An agency must produce records responsive to a request within three business days absent exceptional circumstances." If the agency cannot produce them within that time frame, it must explain in writing to the requestor its timeframe for producing the records, or cite the statute exempting it from doing so. 

The APD's failure so far to provide complete records for eight out of the 12 public records requests filed for this project hampers any public assessment of which allegations it investigated, and what concrete measures may have been taken to address any problems it found. 

In their complaints, the cadet-whistleblowers portray their specific accusations as symptoms of a systemic problem. They allege a pattern of APD moving officers considered problematic from patrol duties into academy instructor positions, where they might be less likely to generate complaints or litigation than they would if they continued working with the public. 

APD denies this broader allegation, emailing a June 18 written response for this report through its spokesperson, APD Public Affairs Unit Executive Director Chata M. Spikes. 

"The Department rejects the characterization that academy assignments are used as a destination for officers who are unable to perform patrol duties," Spikes wrote. "… APD remains committed to providing recruits with a professional training environment that prepares them to serve the City of Atlanta."

APD Acknowledges Investigations

In her email, Spikes disclosed the existence of at least two previously unreported investigations into some of the allegations from the cadets, stating that an investigation by Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Council found no violations of state mandates. 

However, she did not answer questions about specific allegations, nor did she provide the underlying investigative reports to support her statement. APD has also failed to provide multiple documents and recordings requested under the Georgia Open Records Act. 

Spikes said APD and the City of Atlanta's Human Resources Division jointly reviewed the academy. After changes were implemented, HR conducted what she described as a "six-month follow-up assessment" with randomly selected recruits. 

"In response to anonymous complaints regarding the Atlanta Police Department Training Academy, the Department partnered with the City of Atlanta Human Resources Division to conduct a comprehensive review of the recruit experience, instructional environment, and academy culture," Spikes wrote.

Spikes said the process led to leadership restructuring, enhanced staff training and ongoing monitoring intended to improve accountability, but she provided no specifics, nor any documentation to demonstrate or corroborate these claims.

According to Spikes, APD assigns officers to instructor positions based on their qualifications, supervisory reviews, and applicable certification requirements. However, she did not answer written questions asking specifically whether sustained disciplinary findings, pending investigations, or pending civil litigation would bar officers from instructor assignments.

The director of Atlanta Police Department Training Academy, Major Ailen Mitchell, declined to give an interview for this report, deferring to the public affairs office. Spikes said further that, on behalf of the entirety of the Atlanta Police Department, "we respectfully decline an interview."

Requests to APD for records and to Spikes for information connected to specific police officers identified by recruits in follow-up emails remain unsatisfied. Asked to identify the current employment and assignments of Trent Denninger, James Douglas, and John Hordesky, Spikes confirmed that all three remained employed by APD but did not disclose their assignments. Separately, as of September 15, 2026, 99 days after requests submitted June 8, APD had not fully provided the disciplinary, investigative, and assignment records sought concerning Andre Lowe, Kristopher Roach and Kelsey Craddock. The department supplied some records for Lowe and Roach but omitted investigative files identified in its own summaries and the requested records of Lowe's recent assignments. So far, APD has supplied no records at all on Craddock, despite repeated follow-ups. 

Spikes also did not respond to written requests for a list of academy employees, including instructors, who have been removed, reassigned, disciplined, counseled, retrained, or restricted following complaints or investigations.

Despite these multiple remaining unanswered questions, this reporting project has established the following timeline:

On June 14, 2025, four off-duty APD academy recruits clashed with security guards and police at an East Point establishment called UBar near Camp Creek Parkway around 11 p.m. One of the four recruits, Wendy Celestin, allegedly discharged a firearm multiple times during a confrontation with bar security staff who was also a sheriff's deputy.

A report from FOX 5 later identified the suspects as Schneider Predestin, Tristan Dunrod, Justin Roberson, and Wendy Celestin, all of whom appeared at the time to have been members of APD Recruit Class 289. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Roberson told the responding officers the four expected to graduate in about a week and a half; APD held Class 289's graduation 10 days after the incident. Those recruits were consequently "separated," or fired, from APD, according to the department's July 22, 2025 statement titled "Recruit Conduct and Policy Standards."

The recruits' whistleblower account describing this incident was dated July 5—more than two weeks before APD's statement. Notably, APD did not publish its statement on the incident until the day following a WSB-TV Channel 2 Action News aired a July 21 segment about it. 

The whistleblower letter titled "Serious Allegations, Misconduct, Abuse of Authority, Bias, Favoritism, Being Smoked, Bullying, and a Serious Cover Up" was dated July 5, 2025, and addressed to Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum. 

This is the first time portions of the letter have been published by a news outlet. The 15-page-long document was partially anonymous, in the sense that the author(s) did not reveal their individual names, but rather signed off as "APD Past and Present Academy Recruits."

Journalistic due diligence requires careful analysis in judging whether, even partially, to rely on anonymous claims, and publishing even portions of such a letter requires caution. However, the preponderance of the evidence supports the letter's authenticity and its claim to represent multiple recruits. Its careful distinctions between firsthand and secondhand knowledge suggest multiple contributors, while its stylistic consistency suggests that one writer compiled their accounts. It also contains unusually specific, contemporaneous, and testable details spanning multiple cohorts and academy buildings, including insider knowledge of the June 14, 2025, shooting before APD publicly confirmed it. 

The strongest external evidence of the letter's authenticity, however, comes from APD itself: the department treated it as a genuine recruit complaint, investigated at least some of its allegations, and implemented reforms in response. 

Claims: What the Recruits Said

Beyond the East Point shooting incident, the whistleblower letter cited specific instances of alleged instructor misconduct as evidence of systemic abuse and an entrenched culture of bullying and favoritism. These claims can be divided between those that have been substantiated by evidence, such as disciplinary records, court documents, or news reports, and others that have not yet been independently corroborated.

APD disputes some of the letter's broader claims, stating that subsequent reviews found no systemic pattern of harassment, retaliation, or favoritism—but so far has failed to release any underlying records that could shed light on the matter. 

Some of the issues that remain unanswered by the APD include allegations of systemic bullying of recruits, physical hazing, instructors arranging and betting on boxing matches between recruits, instructor-recruit sexual relationships, relationship-based recruit favoritism, retaliation against recruit complainants, leadership misconduct cover-up, and the systematic shifting of problematic police officers to instructor positions. 

This journalistic project has sent Georgia Open Records requests for documents related to each of these issues, but they remain unanswered at the time of this report. While answers remain scarce, the allegations contained in the recruits' letter—which the Atlanta Police Department said it investigated—are numerous.

Allegations of Sexual Harassment and Relationships Between Instructors and Recruits

Recruits alleged that "several" male instructors engaged in inappropriate relationships with female recruits, despite warnings from instructors and department policies against such conduct. 

"It's no secret on campus," the letter stated. "A few months ago, a MARRIED instructor allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with a female recruit."

The letter goes on to claim news of this relationship "led to drama" at the academy when the instructor's wife called to complain. The recruits alleged that the instructor in question remained on the job after the incident, and alleged further that at the time of their writing, multiple academy staff members and recruits still were maintaining inappropriate relationships.

Bullying: Recruits reported multiple instances in which instructors allegedly mocked and bullied specific trainees who were overweight or had disabilities. One such instance involved a recruit whose disability became visible when he walked or jogged, and was allegedly singled out by an instructor: 

"You might as well get ready to be laughed at and picked on, because you have a fucked-up run," the unnamed instructor allegedly told the recruit. 

Recruits from other countries also encountered ridicule when struggling with language barriers, the letter alleged.

Betting on boxing: Atlanta Police Training Academy observes a tradition called "Hand & Glove Day," a day-long event during which instructors arrange boxing matches between recruits who theoretically are matched fairly according to their size, weight, height, and age, according to the letter. 

However, according to the complaint, the boxing matches became anything but fair when instructors "rigged" matches after placing financial bets on who would win. The recruits said they began to suspect something was amiss when instructors started recording videos of the fights with their cell phones, but refused to allow recruits to view the videos or explain why they were being recorded. 

"Some of these instructors get hyped, excited, and joyful seeing recruits they have placed bets on beat the crap out of the person they were matched with," recruits alleged in their letter. "The leadership makes it seem as if the pairing is fair, yet it's purposely rigged to benefit instructors and for them to profit off of recruits secretly." 

Checkered records: Recruits alleged that not only did several instructors at the academy face multiple pending lawsuits against them for alleged misconduct on the job, some even bragged about them. One instructor allegedly told recruits he had three pending lawsuits filed against him at that point, one of which was due to allegations based on his "actions against protestors."

According to the letter, "Little did he know that in his class and other classes, there were friends and relatives of the protestors who filed lawsuits against him and other officers. This same instructor talked very arrogantly, as if his actions against protestors were no big thing." 

The same officer displayed a dismissive attitude toward lawsuits, the letter said. Recruits alleged that this particular officer gave "the impression that when you're sued, let APD handle it and settle your case." The letter added: "As one instructor stated, 'APD will settle it; they have plenty of money.'"

What the Evidence Shows

Credible or corroborated claims include that APD previously found multiple officers working as academy trainers had violated department rules. Subsequent news reporting and public statements also confirmed the whistleblowers' claim that recruits were involved in the shooting incident in East Point. 

Disciplinary records obtained for this story document at least one incident in which instructor Trent Denninger, the coordinator of Recruit Class 295, publicly swore at and berated a recruit named Terry Foster, who then filed a complaint. For purposes of establishing a timeline, Recruit Class 295 began the first week of June 2025, according to APD's commencement ceremony, which later described June 5 as the day Class 295 was "created."

The Denninger-Foster case unfolded from July 7 through September 11, 2025. On July 7, two days after the whistleblowers' letter went to the offices of Atlanta's mayor and chief of police, Denninger initiated a public confrontation with the recruit.

Officer Denninger, who oversaw Class 295 as class coordinator, used morning roll call on July 7 as an occasion to call out Foster and yell at him for "comments he had made in a class group chat" about a test that had been given the previous week, according to a case summary following the internal complaint Foster filed a couple of weeks later.  

Foster filed a complaint with the academy's cadre supervisor office about Denninger, alleging he had violated the department's courtesy policy. According to the complaint, Denninger "cursed at [Foster] several times and spit in his face during their encounter." 

Upon investigation, Denninger admitted cursing at Foster, but denied intentionally spitting on him, according to the case summary. Two of Foster's fellow recruits, Daniel Marrero and Robert Gilliom Jr., confirmed they heard Denninger curse at Foster, using the word "fuck," but said they did not see him spit on the recruit. The APD case summary states that "some sputum may have flown out" of Denninger's mouth unintentionally while he was yelling at Foster. (Gilliom and Marrero are identified only by their surnames in APD's case summary, but their full names are found in the APD's video of their Class 295 graduation ceremony, and in the Atlanta recruit payroll listing.)

WSB-TV reported on the East Point recruit shooting incident July 21, 2025, and on July 22, 2025, APD issued its own statement on an incident described by the whistleblowers. APD's "Recruit Conduct and Policy Standards" statement confirms the East Point incident and says four recruits were kicked out of the academy. This independently corroborates information contained in the July 5 complaint.

Whistleblowers stated in an email that investigators from the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council (POST) visited the academy July 21 and 22 of 2025—an investigation APD later confirmed. Separately, an APD investigator concluded that Denninger had violated the department's courtesy rule and recommended a written reprimand. Sgt. Jason Brooks initially handled Foster's complaint against Denninger and remained the lead investigator. After APD assigned the case to its Professional Development Division, however, an internal complaint form listed officer Jeffrey Fraser as the primary officer.   

APD records contradict themselves on the timeline: Database fields date both the incident and Foster's complaint July 5, while the investigative narrative places them on July 7 and July 18, respectively. Because July 5 was also the date of the whistleblower letter, the discrepancy raises the possibility that APD linked the two matters, though the records do not explain the error. 

In any case, the APD revised its Training SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) on Aug. 26, 2025. The updated policy specifically highlights changes to instructor requirements and prohibits fraternization between academy staff and recruits, including romantic or sexual relationships, excessive personal communication, off-duty socializing, and actual or perceived favoritism. Violations can result in reassignment or removal from academy duties. The policy does not state whether the revisions resulted from the July complaints. 

Ultimately, the APD concluded Denninger violated its courtesy rule by repeatedly swearing at Foster in the July 7 incident. It ruled that Denninger did not intentionally spit on the recruit, issued a written reprimand to Denninger Sept. 10, and formally closed the case the next day. 

Moving Forward: Georgia Open Records Requests Still Unanswered for This Reporting Project

Roughly a dozen Georgia Open Records requests for this reporting project were submitted between December 4, 2025, and June 10, 2026, asking for a range of documents connected to the Foster-Denninger incident, the recruits' whistleblower letter, and the wide range of allegations connected to each. Responses to these requests began to trickle in from the Atlanta Police Department, but the picture they began to paint left more gaps than clarity. 

Finally, on June 18, roughly one year after the whistle-blowing recruits sent their letter to the offices of Atlanta's mayor and chief of police, APD confirmed in an email response to questions for this project that it had launched an investigation and implemented reforms in response to recruit complaints. 

But that acknowledgment has not been matched by full disclosure of the records requested for this project. At publication, APD had supplied incomplete or irrelevant documents, or no documents at all, in response to eight of the 12 requests filed under Georgia's Open Records Act. 

The oldest of these remains unresolved 272 days after it was filed Dec. 17, 2025: Instead of identifying the officers who had served as academy trainers since May 1, 2025, APD supplied a list of 260 people that Georgia POST's database listed as having obtained instructor-certification records. 

This list proved largely useless and almost entirely irrelevant to the actual request. Some of the certifications listed date back decades, and APD gave no indication of which instructors worked at the academy at any time, let alone the specified dates. In other words, the information APD supplied did not satisfy the open-records request.

Other requests for this reporting project to which the Atlanta Police Department failed to provide the requested information, files, or documents include:

• Any documentation from APD's academy investigations into the July 5 whistleblower letter allegations, including reports, findings and interviews.
• Records showing what reforms, if any, resulted from those investigations.
• Complete investigation and academy-assignment records for certain instructors. The APD provided extensive records for Denninger  (Investigation, signed reprimand, disposition letter, and disciplinary history), but incomplete records for two others, leaving unclear whether records were missing or selectively withheld. 
• Playable audio and video from the Foster-Denninger incident and other investigations. The APD provided files showing that the recordings exist but so far has failed to provide the recordings themselves despite repeated follow-up emails explaining the failure. 
• Records from the City HR review and Georgia POST investigation, which are distinct from APD's internal academy investigations.

The above list has been extremely truncated for space, and is not at all exhaustive. 

This project will continue advocating for the release of relevant documents which Georgia's Open Records Act requires the Atlanta Police Department to provide to the public. 

Simply complying with open records law is win-win for both Atlanta Police Department and the public, since lawsuits cost taxpayers money, Georgia First Amendment Foundation's Joy Ramsingh said.

"It is not an attack on the police to ask for transparency. It is not an attack on public safety to ask for accountability in the process," Ramsingh said. "It is the citizenry and the police department working together to restore trust in public institutions. And as long as that mentality is there—the 'us versus them,' 'we're the police versus the citizens'—there's never going to be accountability and transparency the way the law envisions."

Ramsingh's ultimately victorious 2025 Georgia Open Records Act enforcement case was sparked by the agency's repeated denial of requests for records to which the public is legally entitled. A Fulton County Superior Court judge forced the Atlanta Police Foundation to turn over hundreds of pages of records to the Atlanta Community Press Collective (ACPC). The records pertained to the Press Collective's reporting on the Public Safety Training Center, which is the site of the city's police training academy. APF was not fined, nor did the judge order APF to reimburse legal fees; however, the case marked a major legal victory for advocates of governmental transparency. 

If the Atlanta Police Department continues to balk at providing public record documents as required by the Georgia Open Records Act, taking them to court is the only way to force them to comply with the law, the open-records attorney said.

"Suing them is your only choice," Ramsingh said. "I'm sorry, but that's really the next step: Hire a lawyer. You need to sue them." 

Subsequent articles in this series will expand on recruit experiences, instructor records, and broader implications. Recruits, both past and present, and anyone else with tips or any relevant information are invited to contact this reporter, whether on- or off-the-record, at the secure email address joeldelliott@proton.me.