Pitt County Sheriff

What is your current job and title?

Sheriff of Pitt County

What is your highest level of education?

Bachelor of Science, Criminal Justice and Criminology

If you're elected or re-elected, what will be your top priority? Why?

My top priority is continuing to combat recidivism, and school security. Substance use, mental illness and poverty are three of the main issues that people continue to come back and forth to jail. In the Pitt County Detention Center, we address these issues by providing comprehensive programs and connecting detainees to outside resources that continue counseling and provide services once released. As for school security, we have placed a school resource officer in every school in the county.

If you're elected or re-elected, how will you involve your constituents in the process of making decisions?

Constituents are offered the opportunity to connect with my agency by joining Citizens Academies that allows them a six-week window to hear and talk to officers from all divisions of my agency.

Why should voters choose you for the position you're running for?

Voters should choose to re-elect me because I am an experienced leader with proven dedication to doing what’s right. Since my tenure as sheriff, I have fought for and obtained body-cameras that provide transparency and accountability to the citizens of Pitt County. I have also developed comprehensive programs to address opioid abuse and other addictions. A new contract also provides a much more comprehensive level of mental health services while incarcerated in the detention center. I have also embedded mental health professionals who respond along with officers to calls for services. These professionals also connect those in crisis to resources within the community that provide long-term care.

Which three things about you do you most want voters to know?

• Experience matters. I am a 30+ year law enforcement officer with many of those years within a Sheriff’s Office setting.
• I am a transformational leader. A leader with vision. If we keep putting the same thing in, we will continue getting the same thing out.
• I am a sheriff for everyone.

Is there anything else about you that you wish to tell voters?

Continuity matters. It can be very disruptive to the community to keep changing leadership, especially when that leadership is effective and works. Vote to re-elect. Dance4Sheriff.