Voting For Jim Smith
Dear Editor,
I realize there are many supporters on both sides for Jim Smith and Kyle Dukes but I just want to share my opinions on why I will be voting for Smith in the May election. And for my friends at the sheriff’s department that agree or disagree, that’s OK, we don’t have to see eye to eye to remain friends. We have forged those friendships over the years and I hope you just consider my opinion on the matter.
I had worked for the sheriff’s department for 11 years before I left the jail division in September 2021. I can say the jail can be a very mentally draining job, but the last two-three years I worked there seemed to be the worst. It was very discouraging to have the administration we did, that had little to no understanding of what we do.
Excluding one time when Dukes first took office, I personally never saw him step foot in the jail general population unless it was the JCAP block. I saw Jail Commander Shane Coney go to the general population blocks twice, once with Dukes when he first took office and once when we had an inmate refuse to lockdown until he talked to Coney. I don’t believe Coney even wanted to go back to that block until we informed Coney that the inmate will probably end up fighting and struggling with officers unless he did actually go back.
The time I actually lost faith in the Dukes administration was when myself and the jail sergeant on duty were talking to an extremely agitated and aggressive inmate outside of his cell block about the medical care he was receiving. All we could say to the inmate was we were sorry and we had to follow our jail protocols that we couldn’t change the process of what was going on. The inmate kept getting more and more angry, getting louder, and clenching his fist. This caused two passing officers to stop and stand with us since everything pointed to the inmate eventually attacking one of us.
At that time I looked to my left and saw Sheriff Dukes and Jail Commander Coney standing at the end of the hallway about 60-70 feet away from us. I then turned back to the inmate and continued to deal with him; thankfully we were able to get him to calm down enough to go back to his cell block and lay down. Once the situation de-escalated I looked to see if our department leaders were still standing in the hallway; they were not. They had left while we were still dealing with the agitated inmate. Now as I say this I know some may say that wasn’t their job to talk to the inmate or they believed in us to handle the situation, but if you have ever worked in law enforcement you know people just want to be heard especially by the highest-ranking officers.
The inmate knew me as a corporal and the sergeant couldn’t change our protocol, but he would have responded better if he was talking to the jail commander or better yet the sheriff. I’m not saying every time there is a problem, call the jail commander or sheriff to fix it, but they were right there. They knew what was going on since everyone in shouting distance knew what was going on. I was told by a corrections officer not very long ago who is a Dukes and Coney supporter that if he was to vocalize his main complaint it would be that they don’t go to the blocks, so they are disconnected from what’s going on.
James Zimmerman
Burket