Fire department official resigns for mishandling GBI videotape

<p>A Cartersville Fire Department lieutenant has resigned after apparently taking a videotape of an arson investigation interview home and taping over part of it with a football game, according to city records.</p><p>The city released the records Thursday after requests from The Daily Tribune News of Cartersville.</p><p>The home of Greg Cordell burned down in September and authorities were investigating it as an arson. An agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation interviewed a witness in Milledgeville.</p><p>When a GBI agent in Cartersville asked for the tape to be mailed there, fire department Lt. Ronnie Cline traveled to Milledgeville on his own to get the tape.</p><p>But rather than storing it with law enforcement officials, Cline took the tape home. And "by a preponderance of the evidence, Lt. Cline taped over approximately one minute and 45 seconds of the video interview with portions of a Cartersville football game," according to an internal investigation report.</p><p>Cline resigned in April.</p><p>The probe into the handling of the fire also led to two fire captains being disciplined. Capt. Roger Sweat was put on probation for 90 days for viewing the tape at his home. Capt. David McLendon was put on probation for 90 days for not properly securing the site of the fire and not notifying Fire Chief Otis Chupp.</p><p>Cartersville officials had initially refused to release the information, but did Thursday after the state attorney general's office said the information should be available under the state's open records law. The Daily Tribune News asked the attorney general's office in late June for an opinion on whether the information should be released.</p>