An enthusiastic goodbye and an optimistic welcome at the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office
Let’s give credit where credit is due. Three-term Richmond County Sheriff Richard Roundtree did in fact make the agency better December 31st.
He left the building.
He did, however, leave behind a memento – the framed challenge he issued to all personnel:
“What have I done or will I do today to make this agency better?”
Make no mistake, when it comes to the overall Roundtree legacy, the agency he took over by the slimmest of margins 12 years ago is a shadow of what it once was and only a fraction of the quality officers that signed up for the vision he promised in 2012.
There were great names associated with those first few years, and reason to be optimistic, despite some reaches that the new Sheriff believed belonged on his command staff.
As a result of several of those choices, including his insistence that a bombastic butthead with a Napoleonic short man’s complex (Robert Partain) be leapfrogged ahead and elevated to Colonel, many of the good men and women of the RCSO started abandoning ship. Law enforcement superstars such as Scott Peebles, Ramone Lamkin, Chester Huffman, Jimmy Wylds, Lewis Blanchard, and others slowly but surely peeled away. They were almost never replaced with anyone with their wisdom and leadership.
Other than a handful of sycophants that rose to Roundtree leadership posts on day one, after about 2015, virtually no veteran officers of substance were eager to come to work for the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.
There were officers who knew better but chose to stay. It is hard to blame most of them. One was Captain Scott Gay. I write about him here without his input or permission. I want to tell Roundtree personally that despite over 50 years of my personal friendship with Scott’s family, he never betrayed his loyalty to your authority or defied your orders to “lock out Austin Rhodes.”
I never asked him too, either. He wouldn’t have if I had asked him, because he is a better man than you are, Richard.
I did directly reach out to my old friend on one occasion, and since it was an inquiry of a personal nature, it didn’t technically violate the Sheriff’s rule about giving me any departmental information. Captain Gay was coincidentally on the scene in 2017 when a maniac intentionally rammed his truck into a local restaurant filled with patrons, and then attempted to blow the place up with a propane tank. It took Scott about 15 seconds to subdue the fool and stop further damage and possible carnage. I called him personally to thank him for his efforts and check to make sure he was okay. The majority of the information I used that day to brag on Scott was given to me by other first responders on the scene, and of course, his lovely wife Nancy, who also happens to be the Elections Director of Columbia County. Small world, huh?
Despite their feckless leader, many great officers like Captain Gay remained in place because they were born to serve and protect, and had reached levels of rank and pay that are very hard to transfer to new agencies, mainly because of the loyalty that most professional law enforcement leaders show to their longtime staffs. There is a pecking order that is almost always respected in places like Columbia County where an incredibly successful Sheriff has built a great team that would be rightfully insulted if they were leapfrogged every time a veteran officer from another agency wanted a change of scenery. Besides, Scott Gay’s daily world was largely insulated from a lot of the trouble that Roundtree’s bad choices were causing for others.
Probably 80% of the RCSO’s highest ranking officers would have been welcomed for open slots at the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, but not at the same level or salary they had attained in Richmond County.
While it would be easy for me to turn this into a list of the Roundtree/Partain/Pat Clayton (Roundtree’s long time Chief Deputy) atrocities and injustices inflicted on personnel, arrested individuals, crime victims, survivors, as well as damage done to the public’s trust, I don’t need to do that. Others have stepped up to do it for me.
There were about 100 men and women sworn in this week as new and returning officers and staff with first day Sheriff Gino “Rock” Brantley. Their presence is proof of the stink the former boss left behind. They wanted nothing to do with Roundtree and his command staff circus clowns. They were, however, more than happy and proud to sign on with the new Sheriff and his team of well-tenured and experienced command staff. They include, but are not limited to, Robert Sams, Leonard Hart, Bo Johnson, Lewis Blanchard, and an extra special guest star to help get the troubled Webster Detention Center back up to snuff, Chester Huffman.
Huffman ran what became the Charles Webster Detention Center with an impeccable record of success and efficiency from the day it opened in 1997, until he retired in 2014.
The facility began a downward spiral in terms of management, maintenance, and danger, from the day he left until Roundtree’s departure.
After a stint in Burke County, where he worked with similar levels of success, Huffman retired again and began the toughest battle of his life, this time against blood cancer. Thank God in Heaven he was successful and is bringing renewed strength and resolve to fixing the damage done over the past 10 years to the region’s largest county jail. Damage, I believe, done due to apparent criminal negligence and malfeasance by the Roundtree administration.
One final note to the departed Sheriff:
It was a great treat to be welcomed with open arms and smiles in meetings with Sheriff Brantley and many of his leadership team in the very conference room where for 12 years you sat undermining common sense, freedom of the press, and basic decency in the quest to show everyone what a big man you were.
You weren’t.
You did a terrible job, and the agency you inherited now waits to be restored by a better man than you ever were, or ever will be.
God bless and keep Sheriff Brantley and the team he has assembled. It is up to them to repair what the damaged organization and personnel you left behind.
See you in the funny papers, Richard.