VALDOSTA — A lawman at the center of a lawsuit claiming excessive use of force has been fired for another incident, the Lowndes County sheriff said Friday.

Deputy James Stokes was fired from the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office after a situation Thursday when he was working an extra-duty assignment as security at a local night club, Sheriff Ashley Paulk said in a statement released Friday.

Stokes intervened in a fight, leading to an altercation between Stokes and one of the participants in the fight, Paulk said.

“Once the person realized James Stokes was law enforcement, the male ceased his resistance but James Stokes continued, using racially offensive and threatening language all in violation of the sheriff’s office use of force policy. The male sustained no apparent injuries,” the sheriff said.

The matter has been turned over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the sheriff said. Stokes had worked for the sheriff’s office for less than a year, Paulk said.

Stokes, the Remerton Police Department and several Remerton city officials were recently sued in federal court on an accusation of excessive force during a Sept. 6 incident when Stokes was a police officer for the city.

In the lawsuit, Nicholas Paige claims he was slapped by Stokes during an encounter where Paige was mistaken for someone else, with law enforcement entering his home and drawing guns on him.

Stokes was a reserve Lowndes sheriff’s deputy at the time of the Remerton incident; the sheriff’s office is not involved in the lawsuit because Stokes was acting in his capacity as a Remerton officer and not a county deputy at the time, Karla Walker, Paige’s attorney, said in a past article.

Terry Richards is senior reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times.