ATLANTA – One of the five city employees that the inspector general said was illegally held against her will is speaking out publicly.

Briana Jackson said she felt like she was in jail and was even told she could not go to the bathroom during the three-hour ordeal. 

The employees were detained because a watershed official could not find her wallet. The city officials have been disciplined. 

What they’re saying:

Jackson lost her job and said the incident has set her back financially. 

Briana Jackson is a single mother who said her life was finally back on track when the city of Atlanta hired her for an apprenticeship. That was until one of her supervisor’s wallets disappeared. 

“It hurt. It hurt. I cried so hard for days and nights behind that,” Jackson said. “They suspected me as being the new intern, as being a person who stole the wallet.”

Jackson said the false imprisonment she encountered at the City of Atlanta Watershed Department was not only wrong. 

She said it robbed her of her confidence, and she believes it is why she was fired one week later.

What they’re saying:

Jackson took FOX 5 Atlanta back to April 2024 when Watershed Manager DeValory Donahue could not find her wallet. 

“The next thing I know, everybody in the office is being rounded up and put into this conference room,” Jackson said. “We are asking what is going on, nobody’s telling us nothing.”

Jackson said she and the other employees felt intimidated, primarily because she didn’t know what was going on.

She said an Atlanta police officer guarded the door and even restroom privileges were temporarily suspended.

“An hour or two passed by, we’re like, ‘Can we go to the restroom?’ The officer goes off, and he’s like, ‘I’ll ask somebody’ and I’m like, ‘Why do you have to ask somebody if we can go to the restroom?’” she recalled. “I’m actually scared.”

“I was the last person in the room, and I was sitting in that room for three hours,” she explained. “They were searching through my things without my consent.”

“I just felt like I was in jail. I didn’t know what to do really,” she added.

Jackson, Senior Management Analyst Charles Hobbs and three others were subjected to what Inspector General LaDawn Blackett concluded was an abuse of power and false imprisonment.

Dig deeper:

Following the IG investigation, the city told FOX 5 Atlanta, Atlanta Watershed Management Deputy Commissioner Yolanda Broome, who was promoted after this incident, received a warning and mandatory training. 

Watershed Manager II DeValory Donahue received a warning and mandatory training, and Director of Safety and Security Sterling Graham received a warning and mandatory training.

Three senior investigators got written reprimands and mandatory training, but Jackson said she lost her life-changing opportunity with the city of Atlanta and would like to get her job back. 

“I feel like I was really bullied in that situation and nobody told me about this case that was happening,” Jackson said. “I was trying to change a lot for my daughter, get a house and things like that. At that apprenticeship, I was making $900 a week. It was just taken away from me like that.”

“Nobody even called me for a second chance to come back to work at the city of Atlanta. It is like they kicked me to the side, and nobody even cared,” she said.

What’s next:

The city confirmed that the governing board for the Office of Inspector General is scheduled to take up this issue on March 17 at City Hall.