Dear Editor,
This year’s vote for change has to be directed at the Tate County Sheriff’s Department. There are three Republicans and one Democrat running for office. Each of these men think they are qualified to serve as the county’s most powerful elected official. But, the real question is...What do you think?
As a voter, we have the privilege and responsibility to match the man to the challenge.
On one side of the equation is the man. I know all four of the candidates and I agree with the public sentiment: they are all likable, moral, and dedicated family men.
On the other side of the equation is the challenge: the duties and responsibilities of the Sheriff as described in the 2020 Mississippi Code Title 19, Chapter 25, “Counties and County Officers- Sheriffs”. Yes, the Sheriff’s job description is prescribed by state law.
If we want to elect the best man for the job, voting for him on the basis of his likability quotient or the strength of his desire to be Sheriff with no understanding of the challenges he will be facing defies common sense.
The big question is, “What kind of Sheriff’s Department will our new Sheriff inherit?”
And the next question “What are the responsibilities of the office as defined by law?”
One of his responsibilities is defined in Title 19, Chapter 25, Paragraph 35.
“The sheriff shall be the executive officer of the circuit and chancery court of his county, and he shall attend all the sessions thereof with a sufficient number of deputies or bailiffs. He shall execute all orders and decrees of said courts directed to him to be executed. He shall take into his custody, and safely keep, in the jail of his county, all persons committed by order of either of said courts, or by any process issuing therefrom, or lawfully required to be held for appearance before either of them.”
The Mississippi Code also describes his duties for the courthouse He is responsible for maintaining the actual courthouse and protecting it from damage, and for protecting the courts from danger while in session. He is responsible for the jail, prisoners in that jail and his own office which is responsible for all patrol activity.
The law actually defines the Sheriff as a “peacekeeper”. So we can conclude that he keeps the peace by his presence and, if necessary, by force.
As the custodian of the county jail he is responsible for the health and welfare of the inmates. He must feed them, provide separate quarters for men and women, and tend to their healthcare needs. That is why there is a full-time nurse on his staff. The Sheriff is responsible for administering drugs and transporting inmates to the doctor or hospital.
He is responsible for maintaining a staff sufficient to carry out the aforementioned duties. But wait, there is more. He is responsible for keeping deputies on patrol and for executing the directives of the court, prisoner incarceration, and serving warrants and summonses.
Given the breadth of his responsibilities, it is easy to see that our Sheriff has a demanding job.
So this begs the question. How does our present Sheriff’s Office measure up to what is required of it?
Performance at the courthouse is routine and, to my knowledge, there are no complaints. There have been no riots, people storming the courtrooms, or incidents of graffiti.
What about the directive of the courts? The Sheriff and Constables are responsible for serving warrants and summonses from these bodies. In this area our present Sheriff’s department gets an unsatisfactory rating from me.
Why? Because there are more than 1,500 unserved or returned warrants and summonses and because the law specifically states, in §19-25-37 of the Code, “Every sheriff, by himself or his deputy, shall from time to time execute all notices, writs, and other process, both from courts of law and chancery, and all orders and decrees to him legally issued and directed within his county, and he shall make due returns thereof to the proper court.”
The jail is another area of concern. Our jail can house 167 inmates but as of the submission of this article has only 69 inmates: 62 men and 7 women. We could be taking in prisoners from other jurisdictions and would be paid on a daily basis to do so. The explanation for not doing this is that it would require additional jailers and staff and we can’t afford them. Couple this with selective induction of prisoners along with the practice of releasing people on their own recognizance, and the result is a jail that has over 100 empty beds.
The Sheriff’s department has consistently overspent its budget in four of the last six years and keeps coming back to the Board of Supervisors for more money. Couple this with the Department’s lack of transparency and you have a formula for creating a Department with little or no accountability.
So if you wanted to evaluate the work performed against the dollars spent, it would be impossible to do so, unless the Sheriff’s Office provided statistics on its daily operations.
Our Sheriff’s Department has a staff of 52 men and women, including the Sheriff and they do not, as a rule, make statistics available to the public. Ask your County Supervisors, who pay the sheriff’s bills what they know about the daily operations of the department. My guess is they won’t be able to tell you much.
We already know that we have too few deputies on patrol at any given time of the day.
Despite the fact that the county has a state-of-the-art 911 system, the Sheriff’s Department insists on maintaining its own dispatch.
Our county also has a full-time employee handling IT, and yet the Sheriff’s department has contracted with Marshall County’s full time IT employee who works for our Sheriff”s Department as an outside contractor.
You might be interested to know that, if you call the Sheriff’s office for an emergency, there is no voice record of that call because they do not record incoming calls. Call 911 and there is a voice recording of your call.
I have heard several citizens on the west end of the county complain because of slow response time from a deputy, and this points to the fact that there are only two deputies on duty in the evening hours.
The explanation for this lack of patrol officers is that it is hard to find people who want the job. When your starting pay as a deputy in Tate County is 17 dollars an hour, is it any wonder that the department can’t find new deputies? I wouldn’t put my life on the line for that amount of money.
The new Sheriff is going to have to evaluate how the current Department is spending its money and make changes to ensure the protection of our citizens and to improve the response time on emergency calls.
It is very clear that we need change in the Sheriff’s Department and that change will come as a result of your vote. Your task as a voter is to pair the candidate with the challenge he will face and send the best qualified candidate to take the leadership of the department.
It will be hard for you to fulfill your role as a responsible voter without looking past the likability quotient or the candidate’s desire to be sheriff as you focus on the challenges he will face and the experience and skill set he brings to the job.
I for one want a sheriff who will be transparent and accountable. I would like to get a weekly report of the actions taken by the deputies on patrol. If there is a drug arrest in my neighborhood, I want to know it. If a pedophile has been arrested around the corner from me, I want to know that too.
If I call the Department with an emergency (say someone is breaking into my house), I want to know that call is re-corded and that there is a permanent record of my plea for help. I never want to be put in the position of it being my word against that of the sheriff.
Each candidate has push cards and will take your phone call or questions. They each have a public record of their law enforcement accomplishments.
I will not be picking my candidate based on his likability quotient or the strength of his desire to be sheriff. All four of the candidates have the same score on that scale of measurement. They 100% want to be your next sheriff. You can take that measurement to the bank.
I have done my research and picked my candidate based on that study and his qualifications.
I want to encourage you to evaluate each candidate, talk to them, and make your choice not on likability, but rather the candidate’s determination and ability to make the changes that must take place in the Department.
And by all means, do get out and vote on August 8, 2023. A big turnout is expected, in no small part, due to the election of our new Sheriff.
John Eubanks
Sarah, Miss.
