Sherrilynn Lee is ready to see some positive changes in Barrow County, especially in law enforcement.
Concerned by the recent spate of lawsuits against the Winder Police Department and other local agencies, Lee decided it was time to get answers to her questions concerning potentially unlawful police activities and do something to make sure the rights of Barrow County citizens are protected.
To accomplish that goal, Lee recently established a citizens’ group entitled Citizens of Barrow County for Change. Lee has also created a Facebook page and is planning a website for the new group.
Lee said she hopes local law enforcement leaders will be willing to meet with citizens in an open forum and address some of the issues facing the county.
While recent law-enforcement issues prompted Lee to take action, she hopes the group will be able to do much more.
“I’d like to see the group have an impact on the community,” she said. Lee said she hopes that impact will reach people in need throughout Barrow County.
Last week, Lee met with Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith to discuss some of her concerns, in particular the involvement of the Sheriff’s Office in the April 2009 search for the fugitive Quincy Smith. Two people have since come forward saying their homes were unlawfully searched by Winder Police Department investigators and Barrow County Sheriff’s deputies who were attempting to serve arrest warrants against Smith. One of the individuals, former Winder resident Dana Billings, recently filed a lawsuit against the City of Winder and the Winder Police Department claiming several constitutional violations.
Lee said she was encouraged by her meeting with Smith and hopes other police chiefs will follow his lead in implementing new policies and procedures to ensure that Barrow citizens are protected.
Since taking office, Smith has revised the department’s report writing policies to require an incident report be prepared for any instance in which deputies are dispatched and meet with citizens.
“We document everything now,” he said. “My policy is that if a deputy goes out to a residence or goes out to a complainant or gets called out and you have a witness, a victim or a complainant, whether they want a report or not, we’re going to document something.”
Smith hopes that the new policies will prevent any future concerns regarding the appropriateness of any actions his deputies may take while on a call and will also protect his department in the event litigation arises.
“My goal at the Sheriff’s Office is to do what is in the best interest of the Sheriff’s Office which in turn will be what I believe is in the best interest of the citizens of Barrow County,” he said. “This whole incident with [Quincy] Smith is an unfortunate incident and I’m sorry that it happened.”
Smith said now every search made by his deputies is documented.
Though no report was written concerning the April 2009 search of Mai Khang’s residence, a report was written regarding the search of Dana Billings’ home. Smith said he has spoken with the deputies at the scene and was assured that the deputies had consent to search the residence.
“Unless I have concrete evidence, I have no reason to believe my deputies are lying about this. I’ve got to back them up,” he said.
Still, the Sheriff said he does not want the citizens of Barrow County to have any concerns about the operations of his office. He said he encourages people who have questions to contact him.
“I want people to understand that whether you’re mad at me, whether you love me, whether you hate me or whether you’d rather spit than look at me, you have the right to come in that door and ask me ‘why are you doing that and why is this happening’,” Smith said.
Lee said she hopes her meeting with Smith will be just the beginning. She hopes a citizens’ panel can be created which will help make the Barrow community better.
“Sitting on the sidelines waiting for someone to make the first move, does not bring about the change that we so desperately want,” she said.
Oh never mind,"Unless I have concrete evidence, I have no reason to believe my deputies are lying about this. I’ve got to back them up,”-Jud Smith
No evidence, nice excuse!
Also, with regards to your quote from Sheriff Smith, I can understand how that would upset you, because it kinda upset me too. What I had to do was put myself in the mindset of employer and employee to fully understand what he meant. I promise you that he did not come across as arrogant when we were talking, and I fully believe that if any evidence surfaced showing that his deputies acted in an unlawful or uncivil way, he would be ready to discipline or even terminate them if necessary.
Cameras in the car would have done absolutely no good in the Billings case (et al). All the talking was done by the investigators who are in plain clothes and don’t drive a patrol car. What we need is trust. And how can we trust our police if they condone acts like these? It has been over a year and they have done nothing about this. Even with the public crying out for an investigation. What we need is a chief we can trust, and this one is beyond that. The paper should do a poll on if the citizens trust WPD overall after what the investigators did and what the chief did or didn’t do after the incident.
BTW, wouldnt any good investigator have an audio recording of the incident?
Same old story, Barrow S.O. blames Winder. Winder P.D. blames Barrow S.O.
I guess he (Sheriff Judd) learned those tricks while at at Winder P.D.?
I really don't see how the Sheriff's Office has done anything wrong in these cases. They were operating under good faith that the investigators did get consent as they claimed. They can't help it if WPD didn't do the right thing. And since this happened in Winder the deputies were really there as back up.
WPD (via a WPD officer named Goddard) that the 2 WPD investigators on scene were sitting in a car while the deputies performed the search. I am not at all surprised that Sheriff Smith would deny the unconstitutional behavior of his deputies and the WPD officers given that there is an ongoing lawsuit involving his former employer the WPD.
The silver lining to this cloud is that I'm sure the local law enforcement agencies will be much more careful in the future to follow the law and constitution when conducting business.
Given this information, I would agree BCSO has some issues too. Even if they were acting on the word of the two investigators.
A Friend, has Ms. Khang looked into a class action law suit?
Any word on what, if anything, Winder is doing about its' investigators?
He (The sheriff ) is a nice guy, maybe too nice? If he belives every thing with blind faith that he is told from his deputies and command staff then he is in real trouble.Why not ask for a camera in the car and recordings? The burden of proof is on the state in this one. Did they at least get a written consent to search form??
As I said before, their are some good deputies left. Then again, their are some bad ones. this may prove that all to well.