THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2026 · Issue No. 75 · 12 min read
Fired detective's lawyer gives new dates. What the logs show.
Plus the city manager's reply-all, early voting's last weekend and a Friday game for first place.
This issue is presented by Amber Kuhn · At Home Property Group |
A Milton resident who has sold more than $80 million in homes. Amber has guided buyers and sellers through more than $80 million in sales since 2018, pairing nearly two decades in corporate talent acquisition with relationship-first real estate. Bolst North Atlanta, top 2% nationally, and a repeat Atlanta Home Magazine All-Star.
404.441.7582 · amberkuhn@athomepg.com Sponsored · Amber Kuhn, At Home Property Group |
|
In this issue The Camera Files. The fired detective’s lawyer puts dates on the seven emergencies, and what the search logs show. The audits came in August. The camera policy version the city hadn’t produced, and a clarification of our Oct. 17 story. And. The city manager’s reply-all, no answer from Councilmember Cookerly, early voting’s last weekend, first place on the line Friday night and Carvin’ in Crabapple Saturday. |
Top of Mind
the one thing to know this morning
Fired detective's lawyer says it was seven emergencies. Here's what the search logs show.
Milton fired detective Randy Dula in August. His lawyer, Mitch Skandalakis, says it was over seven times Dula used the city’s Flock cameras to find his diabetic wife during a medical emergency.
On Wednesday, Skandalakis put the seven between February 2025 and January 2026. The family won’t give its plate number, citing fear of retaliation, or release Mariam Dula’s screenshots. So the seven can’t be checked against the logs.
What the logs show. In the first five and a half months of that window, an account labeled “R. Dul” ran nearly 500 searches, in logs other agencies have released. Not one gave a medical, welfare or missing-person reason.
- →Over the full year the logs cover, August 2024 to July 2025, the account ran 1,329 searches.
- →Its two most-searched plates, 101 searches and 74, came almost entirely before the lawyer’s window.
- →Inside the window, it ran shorter bursts on plates no other named Milton officer searched: 66 searches of one plate on four days, and 30 of another over three days. The logs can’t say whose cars those were.
The lawyer’s dates, against the logs | ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
The plate searched 101 times Sept. 2024 to Feb. 3, 2025, when it was searched once | ||||||||||||||||||
The plate searched 74 times Aug. 30 to Oct. 21, 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||
Shorter runs on single plates no other named Milton officer searched 26 to 66 searches each, Feb., April, May and June 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||
Logs that name the account Aug. 5, 2024, to July 14, 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||
The lawyer’s window for the seven February 2025 to January 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Shaded months are when each plate was searched. The logs don’t say whose cars these were, and without the family’s plate number they can’t show whether any was Mariam Dula’s. Searches from August to November 2025 carry only the label “R.,” which can’t be tied to one officer. Source: Flock audit logs other agencies released, as counted by The Roundabout. |
Skandalakis wrote that repeated searches during the emergencies were “only to refresh the results,” because Flock doesn’t update a search on its own.
The city hasn’t confirmed the account was Dula’s or said why it fired him, and it hasn’t answered the nine questions we sent Tuesday.
City Manager Steven Krokoff wrote Oct. 2: “Any use for private purposes is unacceptable.” On Oct. 16, he and Councilmember Carol Cookerly told WSB-TV there is “more to this story.”
Read the full story, with what reporters asked the family →
The Camera Files
The missing camera rule: the audits came in August. The city answered six of our Oct. 5 records requests Wednesday, including the version of the police camera policy it hadn’t produced before. What the versions show:
- →Aug. 26, nearly three weeks after Dula’s firing: monthly audits by a three-member team, automatic suspension for abnormal use, a flag on every emergency search, and a rule to document the results.
- →Oct. 15, the day we reported the old 30-day rule: one change, keeping camera data 365 days instead of 30.
Clarification: On Oct. 17 we reported that the Oct. 15 policy added monthly audits. The audits were added Aug. 26; the Oct. 15 rewrite changed only the retention limit.
What the city says it doesn’t have, or won’t release:
- →Any record of the audit team’s reviews outside Flock’s own audit tool, whose history it withheld.
- →Training records for the officers who hold Flock accounts. State law requires a policy that covers training.
- →The internal audits its data-sharing agreement with a federally funded anti-drug program requires.
- →The monthly camera reports its policy has called for since at least 2018, which it withheld.
For the withholdings, the city cited the state law that exempts captured plate data from open records. We asked for administrative records, not plate data.
The department told us in September that a three-member team reviews alerts flagged by Flock’s audit tool. The 365-day limit is within the 30 months state law allows.
Still due. The city says records for 11 more of our requests will come “no later than Wednesday, November 4.” They include the approval to keep camera data a year, the department’s own search log and the records of Dula’s firing.
Answers on four more, including Councilmember Carol Cookerly’s texts about the cameras, are due today.
Following Up
No answers yet. Councilmember Carol Cookerly let our 5 p.m. Wednesday deadline pass without answering questions about her Sept. 9 remarks, which two speakers at the Council meeting took issue with. Our Oct. 5 and Oct. 17 questions are still open, too.
So are the ones we sent the city manager and police chief Oct. 17, before Part 3 of The Camera Files ran.
The reply-all. Sarah Moen has sent us the emails behind what she told Council Monday. They match her account.
On Aug. 9 she asked to put a moratorium on the Aug. 17 Council agenda: a temporary pause on approving large developments on agricultural (AG-1) land.
At 9:19 the next morning, City Manager Steven Krokoff hit Reply All to ask City Attorney Ken Jarrard, “Would you mind responding to this one?” It went to her, too, and to the mayor, all six council members and three staff members.
He wrote that her request was “largely an effort to get ahead of an absurd fabricated narrative that Council has somehow given a ‘head nod’” to Restoration Church’s plans, which neighbors have petitioned about.
Why not answer her himself? “I suspect anything I say will simply be challenged and generate another round of responses.” He also wrote that such projects already need Council’s approval, and that he was “certainly open to considering” a moratorium.
Handing a resident’s request to the city attorney isn’t free. Milton pays his firm by the hour, billed in six-minute increments, at $275 an hour for Jarrard himself under the rates Council approved in 2022. The firm’s bill for the 2025 budget year: $703,040.40.
Then came five recalls in ten minutes. A recall can’t pull a message out of an inbox outside City Hall. It just sends one more email saying the sender would like the first one back.
Moen kept all six. Every one carries the same line in his signature: “National Champion for Trust in Government.”
When she requested the email under the open records law, the city blacked out its text, citing the exemption for attorney-client communications. She already had every word.
The city’s answer came Aug. 17, the morning of the meeting: Jarrard’s memo advising against a moratorium, which he worried would look “overtly hostile” toward a church protected by federal law. Krokoff’s cover note: “nothing in this response is meant to minimize your concerns.”
The ethics code of ICMA, the city managers’ association Krokoff applied to rejoin in 2024, asks members to “encourage and facilitate active engagement and constructive communication between community members and all local government officials.”
The city hasn’t answered our Monday-night questions about her account. The emails Moen received · The city’s copy
The Verizon campus. The city said Wednesday it’s doing its due diligence on the 51.32-acre former Verizon campus in Deerfield, which Council agreed to buy in late September. Surveyors have been mapping its topography, buried utilities and wetlands, including this week.
The review also covers trails, access and public space. The city says no plan for the land is set.
The review should wrap up late next month, when the city decides whether to buy or back out. If it buys, closing could come by Dec. 1. The city’s update · Our Sept. 18 story
The Scoreboard
every game, both schools, the night it finishes
Last Friday, Oct. 16 · football | ||||||
| ||||||
This Friday, Oct. 23 · 7:30 p.m. kickoffs | ||||||
| ||||||
Scores: MaxPreps and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Records, standings and rankings: MaxPreps. Playoff brackets: Georgia High School Association. | ||||||
Friday night. Gainesville (6-2) is 4-0 in Region 7 play and Milton is 3-0. The winner sits alone in first.
MaxPreps ranks Gainesville No. 8 in the state and No. 4 in Class 6A.
At Cambridge. The Bears host St. Pius X (3-4) and sit 3-1 in Region 6, second to unbeaten Blessed Trinity.
Season’s end. Milton volleyball’s run stopped Tuesday with a 3-2 loss to Creekview in the second round of the state playoffs. The Eagles finish 26-12.
Cambridge softball’s season ended the same day, when Jefferson swept the Bears at home in the second round, 18-8 and 11-4. The Bears finish 26-5, after going 14-0 in their region.
Flag football. Next week, Cambridge hosts Sprayberry Monday at 6:40 p.m. On Wednesday, Oct. 28, Milton hosts Gainesville at 6:15 p.m. and Johns Creek at 8:45, and Cambridge plays Chattahoochee at 5:30. Every schedule and score →
Your Vote
Mail ballot? Ask by Friday. Request one by Friday, Oct. 23, on the state’s absentee ballot portal.
Your filled-in ballot must reach the county by 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, which is Election Day. Polling places won’t take it.
The Milton Library has no drop box. The nearest two are inside the Alpharetta and East Roswell libraries, open only during early voting hours. As of Tuesday’s count, the Alpharetta box had collected 313 ballots, the most of the county’s seven.
Or vote early, in person. Use any of Fulton’s 32 early voting sites, including the Milton Library, 855 Mayfield Road, until Friday, Oct. 30. This weekend is the last one.
- →Weekdays: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- →Saturday, Oct. 24: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- →Sunday, Oct. 25: noon to 5 p.m.
The count so far. By the end of Tuesday, Oct. 20, Fulton’s early voting sites had taken 141,331 ballots in person, the county’s unofficial daily count shows. The Milton Library took 6,067 of them, from voters anywhere in the county.
Election Day. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3, and anyone in line by 7 gets to vote. You must vote at your assigned polling place. The state’s My Voter Page shows it, with your sample ballot.
What’s on your ballot. Tuesday’s issue covered every race and question on a Milton ballot. Both state House District 47 candidates answered the same seven questions in our Oct. 13 issue.
The Agenda
public meetings this week and next
Greenprint, round two. The second and last Greenprint open house is Tuesday, Oct. 27, 1 to 3 p.m., in Council Chambers at City Hall.
Drop in anytime: the ideas are on boards around the room, you can add your own to several, and city staff are there for questions.
The Greenprint will guide how the city protects, uses and improves seven properties it owns, among them the Lakhapani Preserve and parts of Milton City Park and Preserve. The city’s announcement →
- →Thu, Oct 22 · 4:45 PM: Milton Trails Advisory Committee · Council Chambers, City Hall. Today. On the agenda, after public comment: a “Staff update of Blueprint Map Code Changes” and “Map Development and Public Outreach.” Watch it live.
- →Tue, Oct 27 · 1:00 PM: Greenprint Public Open House · Council Chambers, City Hall. Drop in until 3 p.m.
Off the calendar. The library’s Teen D&D on Saturday, Oct. 24, which we listed in Sunday’s issue, no longer appears on its calendar. The next session is Oct. 31.
This Week in Milton
the calendar, day by day
Saturday, start to finish. At 11 a.m., the city inducts Tim Cagle, Jordynn Dudley and Scott Stachowski into its Wall of Fame in Bell Memorial Park. Dudley, a Cambridge graduate, now plays for Gotham FC.
From 4 to 7, Carvin’ in Crabapple fills Broadwell Pavilion. Bring a pumpkin; the city has the carving tools. There’s also a costume contest, inflatables, food trucks and a Milton Police trunk-or-treat.
Thursday, October 22
- →10:00 AM · Halloween Costume Swap · Milton Branch Library, until 6 p.m. daily through Saturday
- →6:00 PM · Acoustic Tom · Hyde Brewing, until 9 p.m.
Friday, October 23
- →6:00 PM · Live music · Six Bridges Crabapple, until 9 p.m.
Saturday, October 24
- →11:00 AM · Wall of Fame Induction Ceremony · Bell Memorial Park (free)
- →2:00 PM · Fall Festival with the Teen Advisory Board (ages 6 and up; register) · Milton Branch Library, until 3 p.m. (free)
- →4:00 PM · Carvin’ in Crabapple · Broadwell Pavilion, until 7 p.m. (free)
- →6:00 PM · Live music · Six Bridges Crabapple, until 9 p.m.
Sunday, October 25
- →3:00 PM · Live music · Six Bridges Crabapple, until 6 p.m.
Monday, October 26
- →11:00 AM · Red Cross Blood Drive (book an appointment) · Six Bridges Crabapple, until 4 p.m.
- →6:30 PM · CRAFTer Dark: Mini Pumpkin (adults; register) · Milton Branch Library, until 7:30 p.m. (free)
Tuesday, October 27
- →6:00 PM · Financial Literacy: Be Aware of Financial Fraud and Scammers (register) · Milton Branch Library, until 7 p.m. (free)
- →6:30 PM · Trivia · Six Bridges Crabapple, until 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday, October 28
- →10:30 AM · Pre-K Art Class with Ms. Lara (ages 3 to 7; register) · Milton Branch Library, until noon
- →6:30 PM · Music Bingo · Six Bridges Crabapple, until 8 p.m.
Sold out, per Eventbrite: Sunday’s Murder Mystery Masquerade at Milton’s Cuisine & Cocktails, which we listed Tuesday.
See the full Milton calendar → · Got an event? Submit it
Spot something we missed? Just reply. Every correction we have run is on our corrections page.
