Sheriff Speaks Out About Recent Deputy Arrests

By: Andrew Davis | WSAV-TV
Published: July 29, 2010

Two men in two months, both charged with crimes against a child, both corrections officers at Chatham County Jail.

James Brown, arrested in Rincon this weekend, is now facing 3 counts of child molestation and 3 counts of enticing a child.

This comes on the heels of Dustin McMillan's arrest in June.

He was found in bed with a 13 year old girl.

"There's not much we can do to find out and delete people every once in a while one gets in trouble," explained Sheriff Al St Lawrence.

Chatham County Sheriff Al St Lawrence has seen a pair of his deputies face trouble this summer.

With their arrests come a lot of questions about his department's hiring practices. Questions he believes are unfounded.

"99 and 9/10ths percent of these people are good hard working men and women," said St Lawrence. "And I don't think that it reflects on them at all. You get a bad apple now and then and you have to deal with it."

He did deal with it, firing James Brown and Dustin McMillan within days of their arrest.

"It requires swift and immediate action," said the Sheriff. "Get rid of them and let them face the consequences for what they've done. There's no second chances with something like that."

But should the sheriff's department take a second look at who they hire and how they are screened? the sheriff says no.

"We have 550 employees," said an adamant St Lawrence. "We do backgrounds on everybody, even neighborhood checks, pre employment polygraphs. You're going to have some get in trouble now and then. The thing you have to do is remedy the situation right then. Dismiss them from employment. The actions are swift and sure. That's all we can do."

On some cases, St. Lawrence say he waits for the facts of the case to come out before passing judgment.

In both these cases, there was a zero tolerance policy, and no need to wait.

Sheriff Speaks Out About Recent Deputy Arrests

Sheriff Speaks Out About Deputy Arrests (Added: July 29, 2010)

Share This:

More from this channel:

Reader Comments

Deal of the Day

Most Popular

Links We Like