I know that I am quite late in the congratulations game, but I would like to recognize Clayton County voters for their moment of clarity during the runoff elections. Two major incompetent and disgraceful incumbents, Walking Small and Jewel Scott, were defeated in the runoff for their soon to be former positions.
After the primaries, I had written you off, but you made me proud today, although you scared me with how close the Sheriff’s runoff race ended up. Maybe the remaining few citizens have come to their senses about what a joke Clayton County has become. The tide may be turning, although it may be too little, too late.
I wish there was a way to measure how much of an impact Give ‘Em The Boot had, but I thank you for your efforts in ridding the county I grew up in of such sinister, smarmy, lying disgraces in the county government. I hope the new job with Animal Control works out for you, Victor.
“Walking Small” has a challenger, Kem Kimbrough, willing to bring up his wrongdoing in a new TV ad.
Kimbrough has also been endorsed by the AJC.
In Clayton County, Kem Kimbrough, a graduate of Morehouse College and Emory University School of Law, stands out in a field of well-qualified and earnest challengers to Sheriff Victor Hill. Among his goals is improving department training and community involvement and making the serving of criminal warrants the top priority. The professional Kimbrough, who currently works for the Association County Commissioners of Georgia, offers something else that the current sheriff lacks — a grip on reality.
When Hill took office four years ago, he also took leave of his senses. In less than 24 hours on the job, the former homicide detective revealed himself to be a megalomaniac and a crackpot. After firing more than two dozen deputies, including longtime veterans, Hill had them escorted from the jailhouse property under the watch of rooftop snipers.
That stupid and dangerous display of machismo set the tone for the next year. It also ended up costing Clayton County taxpayers $6.5 million in court settlements last year after a judge ruled Hill’s theatrics were illegal.
Indifferent to the financial mayhem he’s causing, Hill is busy empire-building. He wants jail deputies to investigate crime and attempted to bar Clayton County police officers from interviewing inmates held in jail.
Hill has nothing to sell voters except four more years of expensive litigation and foolish preening.
Personally, in my limited involvement prior to moving out of Clayton County, I really liked what Ernest Strozier had to say in regard to the Sheriff’s office’s duties, and his plan to limit the scope of the office to those duties, rather than stepping on the toes of city and county police, and enforcing a police state to control the empire being built by the new regime that replaced the Good Ole Boy network almost overnight early this decade.
In my ongoing effort to immerse myself in the news of the day, hour, minute, and second, I came across a story about the sheriff of the county I just fled. Fled to escape the tyranny, not fled from justice. Sheriff Victor Hill has been quite the news-maker since his first day on the job.
