The Myth of the Columbia County Cover-Ups
I’m Just Saying by Austin Rhodes
Powered by Roof Savers
Cover-ups in Columbia County are an urban legend of preposterous proportions.
Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and comprehensive affordable health insurance may all gather around campfires on chilly autumn nights to regale each other with the illicit and illegal exploits of the high and mighty from Riverwood, Westlake, and River Island – but that doesn’t make them true.
According to the tall tales, the Columbia County Illuminati in these tony neighborhoods – and a few others – run things. Political campaigns are born and destroyed, government construction projects are planned and awarded, and, of course, any number of personal, legal, and political scandals are either buried or concocted as required.
According to these stories, the local media is most certainly part and parcel in all plans. It must either keep silent on the buried stories or help report and promote the concocted tales., Co-conspirators are rewarded with cash delivered in brown paper bags for services rendered.
The cover-up machinery is activated whenever the status quo is threatened, the powerful are questioned, or the sins of the upper class are about to be exposed.
Except there is no Big Foot, no Nessie, and certainly no Comprehensive Affordable Health Insurance, just like there is no Columbia County conspiracy.
I have been hearing the amazing Columbia County Cover-Up stories for about 40 years now. They started right around the time new suburban neighborhoods built there started to surpass neighborhoods of Aiken and Augusta in value. While the old money folks still carry plenty of weight, the younger up-and-comers seemed to flock to Columbia County. The undeniable proof is in the clear superiority of its public school system, not by virtue of the Board of Education, but because of the upbringing of the children dropped off at the schoolhouse doors.
Still, sometime around 1985, Columbia County started developing a reputation for being the metro area’s epicenter when it comes to cover-ups.
It is a reputation that persists, despite decades of ugly stories and self-destructive leaders making headlines along the way.
The latest loud cry of cover-up comes with the sad news of a severely injured 15-year-old boy whose recovery still remains in doubt. He was the only serious casualty in a single-car accident on Knob Hill Farm Road on November 15th, one of three passengers driven by 21-year-old Gianni Suriani.
While no specific speeds are listed on the incident report, armchair accident reconstruction experts from all over the area have speculated on social media that Suriani “must have been” doing 70, 75, 80, maybe even 100 mph (take your pick) when she lost control of the vehicle, rolling it four times according to the official report before it came to a halt. Those same armchair experts declared she had to be under the influence.
The accident report clearly listed Suriani as at fault, there were no charges made that night, and as a result, no arrest. A field sobriety assessment was given, with no evidence of intoxication noted. No drugs or alcohol were present in the vehicle.
So, of course, another great Columbia County Cover-Up was born.
“She must be related to someone,” one online commenter remarked.
“The fix is in, no doubt,” another one declared.
“The crooked cops out there are covering for one of their own again…none of them ever get in trouble,” wrote a third. That one is my favorite.
It’s apparently a popular theory. But after further review, this young woman has no significant connection to any known politician, cop, celebrity, or costumed superhero. She is not rich, famous, notorious, or hitched to someone who is.
Could it be that the cover-up machinery faltered and provided assistance to an unworthy beneficiary?
Will the revelation that charges in cases such as these often come weeks after an accident cause a course correction for the conspiracy theorists?
We can safely conclude the answer to both questions are a resounding no.
While the legend of the Columbia County Cover-Up is epic, its existence in the real world is in fact a myth.
You cannot be any more connected in Columbia County than someone named Whittle? Still, the sheriff’s own nephew went to jail several years ago when he was caught with a carload of marijuana. Did former Tax Commissioner Kay Allen, former County Commissioner Scott Dean, former State Representative Ben Harbin, and any number of Columbia County Sheriff’s Office officers/staff, or Columbia County Board of Education faculty/staff escape the headlines when their bad behavior was discovered?
You can include my own brother and the nephew of Jail Report publisher Greg Rickabaugh on the list of those whose run-ins with the law resulted in media coverage, ironically, right on my own radio show, and in the pages of The Jail Report.
It benefits local media when it reports the transgressions and scandals of the prominent and connected. Reporting on just the sins of Columbia County’s common citizens doesn’t put butter on their bread. It never has and never will.