Stephen Acorn is a write-in, independent candidate for the Georgia House of Representatives who burbles the usual GOP platitudes about the usual issues.
Yet a kooky retired Methodist “minister” apparently thought Acorn was a menace to the public weal, and took it upon herself to steal his campaign signs in mid-August. Columbus police visited “Rev. Dr.” Cindy Garrard’s home and nearly arrested her husband.
And so in yet another story the far-left mainstream media has ignored and only recently surfaced thanks to social media, Americans have learned what leftists have in store for them should they ever take power.
If they will steal campaign signs in an insignificant state house race, one can only imagine what they will do when the stakes are serious.
Meet Spencer Garrard, a retired professor at Columbus State University and his wife, a woke reverend.
Police were called after stolen campaign signs for Georgia House candidate Stephen Acorn traced back to their home via airtag.
Watch the full police bodycam footage of them… pic.twitter.com/JPaaRWD2Vi
How She Was Caught
Acorn is running against far-left oldster Democrat Debbie Buckner, 71, for House District 137. Redrawn in 2020, the district runs from just east of Columbus to the northeast, then veers northwest.
In a nearly five-minute video posted to Facebook, the much younger Acorn, 42, said his campaign signs disappeared near an elementary school.
Solution: The candidate who isn’t collecting Medicare and Social Security and knows something about modern technology inserted AirTags — which are attached to personal property to locate it when lost or stolen — to track the purloined posters. “I outsmarted the perpetrator and I got some AirTags,” Acorn said:
I cut my campaign signs open, and I put the AirTags within them, and I said I’m just gonna wait and see.
Next day, the signs moved to Garrard’s home. Acorn called the cops, who knocked on the good reverend’s door. Answering was her husband, Spencer, a retired professor at Columbus State University. His gaunt visage suggests years of stress from living, like Rip Van Winkle, in a petticoat tyranny.
Bodycam video shows the obviously irritated police officers’ ridiculous exchange between the henpecked professor. “I don’t even know how to handle this. What am I supposed to say?” one cop asked when he knocked. Undoubtedly, he never thought police work would involve tracking down campaign-sign thieves.
“Hi. What y’all got” Spencer says.
“We’re here about some campaign signs,” the cop says.
Garrard: Which ones?
Second cop: Mr. Stephen Acorn.
Garrard: No, we’ve already voted.
The second cop explained that the signs were stolen from a nearby roundabout. AirTags showed them at the home.
Garrard: They were illegally placed on the public right of way.
First Cop: So do you have them?
Garrard said his wife — the “Rev. Dr.” — had trashed them. When the first cop asked where she was, Garrard admitted that his socially concerned better half was getting a massage. Then he confessed.
First cop: Did she take the signs?
Garrard: I imagine either she or my daughter took ’em. They were on the public right of way where they do not belong.
Second cop: That’s fine. If that’s the case, then you say something to us, we get them.
Garrard then walked up on the second officer twice, once thrusting toward him, and the cops threatened to arrest him.
“What is the problem?” Garrard asked.
“The problem is, technically it’s theft,” the second cop replied.
Hilariously, Garrard panicked and threw his wife under the bus: “I don’t know anything about it.”
Second cop: But you just said that your wife or your daughter took ’em.
Garrard: I did. But I didn’t take ’em.
Garrard showed the officers where his wife trashed the signs and surrendered them.
The second cop again explained that taking the signs was theft. And even if they are illegally placed, Garrard doesn’t have the authority to remove them and should call the police. Or better, the second cop explained, he could have called Acorn, cited the law, and given him a chance to retrieve them
“[Acorn] doesn’t want to press charges, so don’t get attitude with us,” the second cop said. “You call the authorities to get them removed.”
In his video, Acorn vowed that he would not post police body camera footage if the “Rev. Dr.” called him to apologize. Nor, Acorn said, would he release their names or publish the wanted “Sign Snatchers” poster made with their photos. All would be forgotten.
“Regardless of the fact, I love you,” he told the sign-stealing supposedly Christian cleric. “I want you to know that God loves you too, regardless of your politics. Have a blessed day.”
“The write-in candidate shared election records showing Reverend Dr. Cindy Cox Garrard made a financial contribution to Debbie Buckner’s campaign,” NowGeorgia.com reported:
Acorn gave the couple several hours to apologize for the incident and said that he would keep their identities private. Acorn never got a response, so he uploaded a photo of Dr. Cindy Cox Garrard and her husband along with the caption “sign snatchers” to Facebook. Garrard posted beneath the photo “They” is me, not my husband. I never removed a sign from private property.”
“I thought the signs were illegally placed on public right of way and removed them,” sign snatcher Garrard told the website. “The signs have been returned.”
Typical of the Breed
Garrard is a boilerplate example of a far-left woman who pretends to be some sort of cleric.
On October 22, 2023, she addressed the Unitarian Universalists of Columbus.
“Her talk aligns with a theme of Unitarian Universalism and particularly with our Fellowship in Columbus,” the “church” announced:
(We once ran a newspaper ad that read: “Got doubt? So do we!”)
Rev. Garrard says this about doubt: “This idea is foundational to Judaism, but many Christians find it anathema. It has been an important concept for my faith and ministry.”
Garrard also apparently doubts that laws forbidding theft and stealing campaign signs apply to far-left activists.
