PAULDING COUNTY, Ga. — Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify the reason behind the deputy's termination.
A Paulding County deputy who can be seen on dashcam video body slamming a man during an arrest last year has been terminated, the sheriff's office confirmed Wednesday.
The agency told 11Alive's Cody Alcorn that Deputy Michael McMaster had been terminated for policy violations. However, they didn't elaborate on the violations, but said it wasn't directly related to the body slamming incident. The sheriff's office added the GBI is still investigating the situation.
Dashcam video of the incident from March 2022 was released last week. It shows the deputy stopping a pedestrian who, the deputy said later, looked similar to the description of someone who’d been breaking into cars in the area.
In the video, the man appears to ignore the deputy’s commands as the deputy stands behind him and tries to handcuff him.
You hear the deputy say, "You match the description of someone trying to break into people's cars."
The man, Dallas resident Tyler Canaris, responded by saying, "I'm not breaking into anyone's cars."
The deputy then pulls the man backward, around and down, slams him onto the pavement, and gets on top of him.
Canaris was admitted to a hospital for injuries; he was later cleared of any connection to the car break-ins; he is charged with obstruction -- accused of not obeying the deputy. His attorneys have accused the Paulding County deputy of leaving their client with $75,000 worth of medical bills from fractured bones and a ruptured eardrum.
“Sometimes I feel like a cop is following me. I can’t perform my duty the way I used to,” Canaris said last month.
The sheriff’s office initially concluded the deputy did not use excessive force and placed McMaster on administrative duty.
11Alive's Jon Shirek reported his personnel file showed a record of reprimands and commendations going back to 2015.
According to the deputy's personnel file, in 2015, his superiors reprimanded him in writing, saying that he “can be unnecessarily overly aggressive... (he) was recently written up for aggressive behavior when dealing with an inmate."
He was advised to undergo anger management counseling and threatened with termination.
The deputy's personnel file shows he's been reprimanded at least ten times, beginning in 2015 and most recently in November 2022, for minor to more serious violations.
For example, in 2016, he left a trainee alone in the book-in room for extended periods.
In 2018 he left drug evidence out in the open in the Sheriff's Office overnight.
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In 2020, he arrested a man for simple battery in a domestic dispute but failed to get an arrest warrant before the deadline under the law, so the suspect was released from jail and allowed to return home.
In 2015, he left a jail phone inside an inmate’s cell, telling his supervisors later, according to his file, “I guess it slipped my mind.”
In 2015, he took a jail car without permission to run personal errands while off-duty.
This past November, he was attending a training session and called a supervisor to say that the session would last until almost the end of his shift. The supervisor permitted him to go straight home after the training session. But the training session ended early in the afternoon, and others in that class returned to work for the remainder of their shifts that day. The reprimand said the deputy had been “misleading and dishonest to his supervisor,” which the deputy disputed.
The deputy’s file also includes commendations from the public and his superiors.
In 2016, a supervisor wrote a letter to the Sheriff nominating the deputy for Employee of the Quarter. “He has shown exemplary professionalism and leadership,” wrote Lt. Shawn Godsey, “he has improved in all areas and (has performed) beyond expectations.” The file does not indicate if the deputy received the honor.
And he has been receiving high marks on his annual job performance reviews.
In 2021, his supervisors rated his fitness for promotion to a specialized unit; he was seeking a promotion. They concluded that he needed “much improvement,” in both competence and dependability. They noted, for example, that he wasn’t showing up for the training he needed. Later, however, the deputy was promoted, and assigned to the Special Response Team.