Leaving hometown tough for McAllister

LAKE CITY — Making the decision to leave the Lake City Police Department was the hardest career choice Sgt. Skee McAllister said he’s ever had to make.

“I’m from here,” he said of Lake City. “This is home. So it made it a difficult decision to leave.”

McAllister, who’s served on the Lake City Police Department for nearly six years, just began a new job as a polygraph examiner for the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office. He started Monday, just one day after his final official day working for Lake City.

McAllister, 32, grew up in Lake City and graduated from Lake City High School. He said he’ll continue serving on the board of directors of the Greater Lake City Chamber of Commerce and that he doesn’t plan to move right away.

As the son of the late Florence County Chief Deputy Sheriff Franklin McAllister, he said he’s wanted to be a part of law enforcement since he was a child.

He thinks it will be a positive step in his career growth after becoming Lake City’s certified polygraph examiner and running criminal and pre-employment screenings for the city.

McAllister completed a 400-hour polygraph program at the American International Institute of Polygraph, in Morrow, Ga., and plans to receive his master’s in criminal justice from Troy University in Sumter during the spring.

He got to know his future co-workers in Berkeley County through an internship during which he conducted 150 polygraph exams, he said.

A polygraph detects deception by recording physiological responses to the fear of being caught lying, McAllister said. He said a great deal of misinformation about how to “beat” a polygraph exam exists on the Internet, but a trained examiner will know the difference between normal and manipulated responses.

“He’s going to be a great asset to us with his knowledge that he has and his investigative skills … (He’s) just going out on the road knowing how to do the job rather than having to be taught how to do the job,” said Berkeley County Sheriff’s Operations Maj. Ricky Driggers.

During the internship, McAllister ran exams for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division; the Columbia Police Department; Richland, Orangeburg and Calhoun counties; and various Lowcountry law enforcement agencies, he said.

“As the major said, I became part of the family — I didn’t just work there,” McAllister said.

In late 2007, McAllister wrote a Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation grant for $10,574, which paid for his course and the polygraph instrument, and received his certification a year and a half later, he said.

He also thanks the Lake City residents for their support. The community came to his assistance with an additional $6,800 in donations that helped him pursue and achieve the certification, he said.

McAllister said Lake City Police Chief Billy Brown and Assistant Chief Bobby Williams have been “extremely good” to him during his time working in Lake City.

His biggest challenge will be adjusting to the new area where he’ll be working, he said.

“It’s like I’m relocating from one family and going to another,” he said. “Change is hard, even though it’s a positive change.”