| The Sheriff’s View #50 for Dec. 8 to 12, 2008 |
By: Sheriff J.B. King
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Posted: Thursday, December 11, 2008 11:39 am
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Sheriff J.B. King
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Welcome aboard for one more visit with the members of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department. It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon. My wife and I just finished the Waynesville Christmas Parade and it seemed like there were a million people along the route. As the Sheriff you get to lead the parade and throw tons of candy out of the window for the children. By far this is the most fun job detail that you get to perform. You throw candy and kids squeal. It does not get any better. My wife tells me that this is the only part of my job she enjoys.
But there is a dark downside to this particular job detail because every once in awhile you nail a kid in the head with a bad throw. They usually look at you for a second then dive to the ground to recover the offending missile. Then there is the wear and tear on the left throwing shoulder. Since we had the Laquey and Crocker Parade on Saturday and threw more tons of candy out the window my left shoulder is sore. But again this is the fun job and I do enjoy the parades.
So next Saturday those of you in the Richland area need to be on your toes. I plan to attend the Richland Christmas Parade and I doubt that my aim will improve during the next week. I am bound to hit somebody.
I suppose the big story of the week is that once again former Sheriff J. T. Roberts has filed a lawsuit against other Pulaski County elected officials. This time he sued Pulaski County Clerk Diana Linnenbringer and myself over the November election. Roberts is asking for the Pulaski County Circuit Court to order a recount by hand of the ballots cast on 11-4-08 in the sheriff’s race. Roberts second request is for the Judge to order a brand new election to be held for the sheriff’s race and to also order a hand recount under the supervision of the circuit court for the new election. And he is seeking reasonable attorney’s fees to be paid to his lawyers.
I suspect this story will be with us for some time but I have no idea how this will impact the sheriff’s department or how soon said impact might occur. I am sure there will be an impact but only time will tell. At this time I believe every Judge in our 25th Judicial Circuit has already refused to hear the case. A judge from another circuit will have to preside. In the meantime as this case moves along we shall continue to operate as normally as we can under the circumstances.
In other news there is now a huge green monster parked at the rear of the courthouse. Our new state of the art backup generator has been placed on the concrete pad. It will be hooked up to the electric feed to the courthouse soon and we will be in business. I cannot tell you how nice this new generator looks nor can I tell you just how badly we needed this unit. The operation of the Sheriff’s department has been hampered by the lack of emergency electricity since I took office.
The situation has worsened over the past few months because it seems like every time we fire up our old military surplus generator the electric surge from this unit destroys other electronic components within our department. We were getting tired of purchasing the same replacement parts. I would like to thank Commissioner Farnham and the members of the Board of Directors of the Courthouse Utility Fund once again for their efforts in bringing the courthouse up modern standards.
On Dec. 5th we assisted the LANEG task force and members of the Missouri State Highway Patrol Troop I, with the service of a search warrant out in the county. I believe they located narcotic paraphernalia with residue and two firearms. The homeowner, Joseph M. Trotter, age 28, of 29660 Starburst Drive, Laquey, Missouri, was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. A charge was filed and his bond was set at $25,000.00. Mr. Trotter has since bonded out of jail.
Also on Dec. 6th at 3:36am our deputies were notified of a shooting incident on Missouri 28 near the Big Daddies nightclub. One person was shot and taken to the Ft. Wood hospital. At this time we still do not have a clear understanding of the events that occurred in connection with this incident. We will continue the investigation.
As many of you already know we now have an online news service in Pulaski County. The reporter for this service has articles up online within hours of the events and we no longer have to wait for days to read about the events. I suspect this new service is going to put a squeeze on us because he will want information on the story long before I can assemble the needed facts. I have already discussed this issue with the reporter and hopefully we will not end up throwing things at each other.
And last but not least in the news department for this column our calls for service/case number count today (12-7-08) has reached 10,056. I knew it was going to happen but I did not want this to occur. There is a lot I could say but the bottom line is that our calls for service keep going up and our manpower stays the same. Now with the rumors of the pending budget problems for next year we may even lose manpower. Things are not looking good at this point.
Once again I seem to be at the magic word count. I would again ask all of you to drive careful and to please stay legal. Our jail budget is shot for 2008 and we do not want your business. But as I said last week if you just have to visit the jail we shall leave the light on for you.
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