Weaver named investigator of the year by Prosecuting Attorney Council of Georgia
Floyd County District Attorney’s Office Chief Investigator Scott Weaver is selected as Investigator of the Year.
Over the past 30 years he has been in law enforcement, Scott Weaver has seen things people should never have to see in a lifetime.
“It’s a tough job,” said Weaver, the chief investigator for the Floyd County District Attorney’s Office, where he has worked since 1997. “It always has been.”
But despite these experiences, occurring from his time as a patrol officer with the county police department to joining the DA’s office as an investigator, Weaver still wakes up every morning wanting to go to work, he said.
This drive, sourced from a desire to protect and serve his community and its residents, is at the core of his work, and should be at that of anyone in law enforcement, or else they don’t last very long, he continued.
Those looking for notoriety or money will not find it in this line of work, he said, but “if you really want to help people, this is the greatest job in the world.”
“I’ve always loved my job,” Weaver said, and to be able to say that when so few can is a reward in itself.
On Sunday, at the summer conference of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, Weaver was recognized as the recipient of the Investigator of the Year Award for the division the Floyd County DA’s Office is in — one to 12 assistant district attorneys. He was nominated by DA Leigh Patterson in a letter, detailing a number of examples of his work, from assisting a Floyd County officer involved in a serious wreck to catching burglary suspects and returning a family’s Christmas presents.
“We are extremely proud of Scott,” Patterson said, adding that everyone in the DA’s office knows he is deserving of the honor.
While at the conference, Weaver did not have a clue he was going to get the award, he said. So when his name was called he was hit with surprise, even more so when he saw his wife and three kids in the back of the room looking on. Patterson had snuck them in through the back before the announcement was made.
In the nomination letter, Patterson referenced Weaver’s response to a serious wreck on Sept. 22, 2016, involving Floyd County police officer Brandon Broome, whose patrol vehicle was struck by a Redmond Regional Medical Center ambulance on U.S. 27. Weaver, who served on the SWAT team with Broome, was the first person on scene, and stayed with Broome up to the point he was taken from the scene by a helicopter.
“(Maj. Tom) Ewing had to practically order Scott to not get on the helicopter because there was no room,” former Floyd County Police Chief Bill Shiflett wrote in a letter. “Scott simply did not want to leave his side.”
“The snapshot I took that night was Scott Weaver standing at the head of the stretcher, his clothes covered in blood, his eyes having a wide open stare which seemed to be a frightened look, however bold and determined at the same time,” Shiflett continued in his letter. “What really got my attention were Scott Weaver’s hands. They were covered in blood from where he was applying pressure to Officer Broome’s head wounds and getting the officer out of the car.”
Patterson also spoke of Weaver’s efforts in investigating the theft of money from a man’s investment accounts by his daughter and son-in-law, who were keeping him medicated and cutting off communication with his son, a Marine who lived in Atlanta. She said through Weaver’s investigative work, the thefts were stopped and some of the money taken was recovered.
Weaver recalled an incident a couple weeks before Christmas several years ago, when he and a Rome police officer stopped a burglary in progress, after wading through a creek in Summerville Park in an attempt to return the Christmas gifts stolen from a family. He was driving in the area when he came upon two men walking down the road, raising his suspicions when they gave him a “funny” look as he passed, he said.
A lookout was called into 911 by him, and city officers arrived on scene as the men were in the process of burglarizing the home. After spotting police, the two men ran out of the house, kicking off a chase ending in their arrest.
Weaver is hesitant to talk about himself, he said, not one for touting his own achievements. But in thinking back on all that has transpired over the course of his career, he is quick to focus on those he worked with.
He thought of his 27 years on the Rome-Floyd SWAT team, specifically a shootout in 2001 with a man who shot a Rome police officer while he barricaded himself in his Coosa mobile home.
“I really remember that a lot,” he said, adding how he was thankful no officer was killed. “It was a really hard time but everyone got through OK.”
When he went up to accept his award, Weaver was wearing a Marine Corps T-shirt. Before coming on as an officer with the Floyd County Police Department, he served as a Marine for four years after graduating high school.
His service was noted in Patterson’s nomination letter, in which she included the motto of the Marine Corps — Semper fidelis, translated as “always faithful,” which Weaver has been to God and his community for decades, she said.
“Floyd County is lucky he is their protector,” Patterson said.