Georgia homeowner jailed after trying to remove squatter from her house—cop tells her to think about how the squatter feels

Police arrested a Georgia woman and charged her with criminal trespass after she tried to move back into her own home where an alleged squatter had taken up residence. Loletha Hale told WSB-TV Atlanta, “I spent the night on a mat on a concrete floor in deplorable conditions. While this woman, this squatter slept in my home.” The alleged squatter has not been charged with any criminal act.

Clayton County police came to Hale’s house on Dec. 9 when the owner attempted to enter. A deputy sheriff suggested Hale look at the situation from the vantage point of the alleged squatter. “Just think of it from this perspective, though. Everybody isn't as fortunate as you to have a bed. All the little things, a bed in their house, food in the kitchen,” the deputy said.

The battle over occupation rights began in August when Hale first confronted the alleged squatter, Sakemeyia Johnson, and called police to have her removed. It should have been an easy matter to adjudicate because of Georgia’s Squatter Reform Act, which was written to protect the rights of homeowners in the state.

But Clayton County Magistrate Court Judge Latrevia Lates-Johnson decided that Johnson couldn’t be called a squatter because she was related to the partner of a tenant who had been evicted from Hale’s house.

“How can she not be squatting when I've never had any type of contract relationship with this person?” Hale asked. Johnson can be seen in police bodycam footage explaining to officers how they were incorrect in citing her as a squatter since a judge “signed an order saying that I wasn't a squatter.'

The altercation provoked a court battle between the two women with Johnson eventually claiming bankruptcy and saying Hale was her only creditor. On Nov. 18, a magistrate judge decided that Hale was the lawful homeowner and the woman went back to her home, mistakenly thinking that Johnson had cleared out.

But she returned to a house with different locks and Johnson still living in it. “I returned on Monday to start painting and she had broken the locks at my property,” Hale told WSB. “She just caught up out of nowhere. She had this guy with him, and I locked the door. I locked the screen door, and he forced himself in telling us to get out,” Johnson told police, who told Hale that she didn’t have the necessary signed writ of possession required to remove Johnson.

Hale says she is still waiting for the writ but can’t believe how the situation has deteriorated for her. “To see that woman walk into my mom's house while I was in the police car, something is wrong with this picture. Something is inherently wrong with this picture.”