ATLANTA — Editor's Note: The witness decided to remain anonymous because she testified. 11Alive will not be naming her.
The star witness against former Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill said she had to stand up after witnessing the abuse against inmates.
"It's upsetting, it's really degrading, it's everything that we should be against," she said.
After working for the Clayton County Sheriff she told 11Alive's Kaitlyn Ross she had zero regrets for recording the sheriff on video. She said what she saw was just not right.
The witness faced the former sheriff in court after testifying against him in front of a grand jury. An hour after her testimony, she was then demoted and removed from all of her special team's assignments. The officer struggled to find work in the field after she left the department.
When Hill confronted a prisoner, the officer secretly hit record on her cell phone. She claimed she knew what would happen next.
"Everybody was scared. So many people were scared. A lot of people were saying, I am not going to get involved. Somebody has got to stand up. I came forward, with no problem," she said.
Although the officer wants to keep her identity hidden, she said the public deserves to see what he did to detainees
In the video, a handcuffed man asks the sheriff, "Is this a democracy, sir? Is this the United States?"
The sheriff answers, "No it's not. Not in my county."
The sheriff then directs his deputies to strap the man into a restraint chair in the middle of the department.
The use of a restraint chair is allowed at the Clayton County Jail for a limited time if the prisoner is a threat to themselves or others. However, the officer claimed this video proves that wasn't the case.
"He wasn't combative, he wasn't fighting. He was being respectful," she said.
At trial, the former sheriff plead not guilty, and his attorneys argued he didn't order the restraint chair's use.
The jury saw the video and found Hill guilty.
"You can't pass the blame off on anybody else. You can't say, 'Well... so and so did it,' I didn't give that order. No, you made a point to come down there," she said.
She did eventually find a department that saw value in her standing up for what was right. The office has since moved up at that agency.
She agreed with the jury's guilty verdict. The ex-Clayton County Sheriff was sentenced to federal prison Tuesday.