COMMENT REVIVES OLD ALLEGATIONS

Comments by former disenfranchised or demoted law enforcement joined with political hacks meant to try and diminish the good work of our sheriff’s department might have backfired. This comment on a local blog, “When Greg Arthur was Sheriff those game rooms were shut down” has revived old allegations about how game rooms were handled in the Greg Arthur/Chip Fairchild administration.

The constant drum beat of criticism of the sheriff’s department is meant to single out Sheriff Henry Patterson and help whoever the Democrats want to run for that office in 2012. But more than all of the misleading comments posted on the Democrat blog, this one has brought up memories of why we should all celebrate that Arthur and Fairchild are no longer roaming the county in uniform with a county issued gun.

While Patterson’s team is making arrest and always fighting against crime, that comment reminds many of us of how game rooms shut down and relocated on what seemed like a rotating basis under the former sheriff and his infamous sidekick. Allegations that there was pay-offs and coordination between game room owners and the Arthur administration were all but gone and never proven, but efforts to hurt this community perceived by some to be coming from the same former officials has revived the possibility.

The administration before Sheriff Patterson’s were known to be serial adulterers with long sharp knives ready to cut political opponents up when needed (symbolism knives of course). Much of the rest of their activities is still under possible investigation, but using game rooms to highlight their moral and professional superiority is awful bold and it also is very calculating. Re-painting a new version of the Arthur administration’s alleged successes would only affect his loyalist supporters and those so young they don’t remember.

There is a sheriff’s race coming in 2012, but there does not have to be an assault on truth or local history. And there does not have to be an assault on the work of the men and women who risk their lives to protect us as we lay our heads down to go to sleep here in Liberty County.

This sheriff’s department is not sanctioning bribes from game room owners. This sheriff’s department is not turning its head while members are running around on their wives. This sheriffs department took a department with some bad characters in it and got rid of them. They took the overtime hours that had built up under Arthur and was causing huge budget problems and they fixed it. It has not been a fun place to work, but this sheriff’s department is a much much better department than when Henry Patterson took over.

Thanks for reminding us Chip!