What's Going on with Colbert County Sheriff's Office?

 

Almost every county's press release site uses the same software, but each has marked differences in what is chosen to be presented. After the general election last November, the Colbert County site ceased adding new prisoners to its public jail roster; however, it did remove those who had been released. Apparently Colbert also stopped offering (selling?) to such local web pages as the Quad-Cities Daily.

Now the Colbert County Sheriff's Office has removed the names of all prisoners from its site. Why? New arrests are still published in national online data bases that presumably pay big bucks for them.

This is a move backward for the county. We hope it's corrected soon. We need more transparency, not less.

Colbert Sheriff's Race Revisited

 

For now, we have two rebuttals to recent reader critiques of the two candidates for Colbert County Sheriff...

Sheriff Frank Williamson: It would appear that the lawsuits presented to show Williamson's incompetence only show how underfunded is the department. He can't hire proficient deputies on the salary the county currently pays. Any sheriff will face these lawsuits under these conditions. Keeping Frank in office is the best way to bring this department up to snuff. He's performed some miracles already, so let him keep the job he's earned.

Officer Eric Balentine: Attached is a document that answers the questions concerning Eric's supposed police brutality -

As the election draws nearer, we'll publish more material if warranted.

Good Deputy/Bad Deputy

This blog received two rather nasty comments concerning our article on the law enforcement officer whose weapons were stolen by a Muscle Shoals teen. Basically, the posters challenged our source and us for publishing the "false" account of the unlocked squad car. 

So was it locked or unlocked? This is from the deputy himself:

We don't choose to post the law enforcement officer's name here, but we do wish to offer him praise for his attitude. Not every officer would have shown this much grace under Facebook fire.

Are all deputies intent on doing their best? It seems not. One reader has reported:

On my way to work this morning, I stopped to get gas. I saw a Colbert county law enforcement officer going inside a public place and speaking to people without a face covering. I just assumed when you take an oath to protect & serve, it didn’t mean, “yourself. “ Very disappointed considering Colbert County is in the red concerning COVID19. Sadly, all heroes don’t wear masks.

With How Many Citizens Does This Deputy Interact Each Day?