Eaves was controversial from day one, after his college classmate Mayor Maynard Jackson named him Atlanta’s top cop in 1974. He defiantly used public money to pay for extra options on his fully loaded city vehicle: “If I can’t ride in a little bit of comfort, to hell with it.” (He later reimbursed the city for the difference.) Jackson forced Eaves out in 1978 for helping officers cheat on promotions tests. Within a few years, after winning a seat on the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, he was pocketing payments to help a local businessman, prosecutors said later. A federal jury convicted Eaves of extortion in 1988 after he was caught selling his vote on two rezonings.
It Takes One to Know One Cops know perps try to fool lie detectors by taking deep breaths to raise their blood pressure. Eaves tried the same tactic, investigators said, when they asked what he knew about the police cheating scandal.
Photograph courtesy of the Atlanta History Center
