Lexington, SC 11/15/2022 - Lexington County native Marlo McCann began her law enforcement career at the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department in October 1995 as a detention deputy.
Since then, McCann has worked her way up to lieutenant of the Major Crimes Unit, the unit’s first female lieutenant.
“I grew up here, honestly,” McCann said. “There were a lot of older people here when I was younger that I looked up to that were role models for me and helped guide me along the path of my career…and now I’m one of them.”
After serving as a detention deputy, Lt. McCann held various roles at the Sheriff’s Department in the Warrant Division and five years on patrol, as well as at the courthouse.
McCann then served as a school resource officer for three years before finding her home in Major Crimes in 2010.
There, she was a detective for seven years and was promoted to sergeant in August 2017. Two years later, she was promoted to lieutenant.
While advancing in her career at the Sheriff’s Department, McCann also saw changes in her life at home. She went through a divorce and as a single mom, raised two children.
Though her children are now 20 and 17 years old, McCann still reflects on a conversation she had with them in their childhood about her job.
“If we’re ever in a store and I tell you to run, don’t ask why. You just go. If I tell you to stay here and I go, don’t follow me” McCann said. “You don’t ever know what you’re going to run into. You could be in the middle of Walmart shopping, and something breaks bad in there, and you have to react because it’s what you do. But you want to get your family as far away from it as you can.”
McCann said there were times when she had a call in the middle of the night, and her children would get up the next morning to drive to school and see she still was not home yet.
“It just rolls right off them because they’re so used to it,” McCann said. “But we still go and do what everybody else does. I’ve tried to let them have as normal of a life as possible, but at the same time, I had to have that talk with them.”
McCann, a West Columbia native, has lived in Lexington County her entire life. Going to school in Lexington County means she has encountered her fair share of classmates out in the community or sometimes within the walls of the jail.
“We used to joke that half of our high school worked here at the Sheriff’s Department, and the other half were in the jail,” McCann said. “I love Lexington County. I’ve watched it grow over the years…It’s been neat to work here and live here and see how things have changed over the years.”
With her 27-year tenure, McCann also encounters a lot of co-workers and friends asking her when she plans to retire.
“I tell them that I don’t know. That’s why I’m still here,” McCann said. “I like it where I’m at. I still like what I do. It’s still fun.”
