Pine Ridge, SC (Paul Kirby) The plans made by the town of Pine Ridge to have their police department back up and running by April 1, 2018 aren’t going exactly as planned. This week, former interim police chief Eddie Powell, who had been on suspension and was to return to work next week with a reduction in rank, turned in his letter of resignation. We have been told by a source speaking on the condition of anonymity that his suspension stemmed from his refusal to follow a directive from the police commissioner who is also the mayor of the town, Robert Wells. Powell was directed to fire the only other police officer that worked full-time for the department. According to our sources, the town’s Public Safety Committee that included Mayor Wells and Councilmember Beth Sturkie wouldn’t explain to Powell why they wanted Officer Johnathan Carswell fired or what, if anything, Carswell had done to draw their ire. They also were said to have provided no written or the details of any verbal complaint that the chief could look into regarding Carswell.
In addition to Powell’s resignation, one of the part-time officers, a resource that had been used a great deal under the leadership of former Police Chief Billy Parker, also resigned from the department according to a press release from the town that was received at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday March 27, 2018. Chief Parker was “separated” from employment last week during the same meeting where all of the other actions took place.
After the department got rid of all its full-time employees, Mayor Wells said that the town had already made an arrangement with the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department to provide an adequate police coverage for its residents should an emergency arise. However, on Friday of last week, we asked the sheriff’s department’s spokesman Captain Adam Myrick a series of question regarding that arrangement. Those questions were:
• Has the sheriff's department upgraded the staff in the south region to provide extra staff in the Pine Ridge area during these periods when part-timers aren't working the town?
• Since they no longer have a chief officer, will the part-time officers (in Pine Ridge) answer to Captain Howard (the LCSD South Region Commander) and his command staff or any other supervisor at the sheriff's office?
• Is there a contract in place where Pine Ridge will compensate the LCSD for any extra, preferential coverage?
Myrick answered those questions in two separate messages on Friday and Saturday. One was an e-mail and the other was a text message that was to clarify the question about supervision. In Myrick’s answers, he said, “We’re scheduled to provide law enforcement services to Pine Ridge residents through next Friday, March 30. We’ll do so with no contract or compensation as we would for any other town that doesn’t have a police force.” After asking him to clarify the question of who would supervise any part-time deputies who might be scheduled to work in Pine Ridge, Myrick texted that the sheriff’s department had no part-time staff currently working for Pine Ridge on their days off.
To clarify even further, there are currently no municipalities in Lexington County that receive any preferential treatment, patrols, or responses to any emergency or non-emergency calls for law enforcement officers from the sheriff’s department. That means that Pine Ridge will be treated just like the town of Summit, or Gilbert, both Lexington County towns that have no police departments of their own, or any other unincorporated area of the county. This would include far-reaching points such as Sandy Run which is just northwest of St. Matthews in Calhoun County. If someone who lives in any of those areas dials 911, deputies from the sheriff’s department are dispatched depending on how serious the call is, and in what order it was received. Calls sometimes have to be stacked or put into line if deputies are very busy.
In the spring of 2017, this writer went on a ride along in the South Region of the county with a deputy. During that six-hour period, we went from call-to-call with no breaks for food, drinks, or even a bathroom stop. We did stop for gasoline once because we were about to run out. Some of the less critical calls for service waited in line for several hours as we dashed from one emergency to another answering calls. The deputy I rode with took plentiful notes by hand and still had hours of reports to enter into a computer after I got out of the cruiser and went home.
No additional deputies have been added to the South Region of the sheriff’s department for the Pine Ridge arrangement. That region is run out of its headquarters in Pelion at the county’s airport. There also have not been any additional staffing upgrades added to Pine Ridge’s closest neighboring region, the North Region that is based out of a headquarters on the Irmo side of the Lake Murray dam since the Pine Ridge arrangement was started. North Region deputies patrol the unincorporated areas around Springdale, West Columbia, and other areas like the north portion of the county outside of the towns of Irmo or Chapin.
In Pine Ridge’s first statement after the Thursday night meeting, they explained that they previously had protection from their own police force Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. with two officers. There were also the part-time officers supplementing that coverage at nights and on weekends according to their availability. Now, after the resignations of this week, the town is saying that the operations of their Police Department will be temporarily suspended while they try and hire a new chief and look at their options for officers.
We have requested a great deal more information from the town of Pine Ridge through the SC Freedom of Information Act. This law allows for some personnel records to be released and those matters be openly discussed in certain cases. As an example, the performance appraisals of the assistant principal at Airport High School that was charged with having sex with a teenage student,was released to the media by several school districts she had worked for. These were not her appraisals from just Lexington Two, but also from Lexington Richland Five, a district she worked for many years ago. We hope to hear from Pine Ridge about the reason that Officer Carswell, an officer that had been discussed extensively for promotion last fall, was terminated.
