Sheriff’s office to get eight new vehicles

Marion County Sheriff Mark Richardson appeared before Marion County Council May 12 to discuss his spending of money received from grants and state drug forfeiture money. Council members unanimously approved purchase of eight new vehicles for the department.

According to Richardson, it’s been more than two years since the department purchased new vehicles. Also, the county received $115,000 in drug forfeiture money. The money is part of a larger sum gained from a drug bust and subsequent arrest during an October 2007 interdiction in Spartanburg County. Three county deputies were part of the task forces, taking part to gain experience and to learn from it, Richardson said.

“Our amount is $115,000 …. I’d like to buy five vehicles for the office … this will help my department out tremendously,” he told council. Additionally, a Department of Justice grant of $63,000, earmarked to purchase equipment and vehicles, will help in the additional purchase of three vehicles. Richardson explained that though the county does not have to pay for the new vehicles, it would have to budget for the upkeep, gasoline and other associated costs of operating the vehicles.

The county will buy the vehicles off the state contract and then be reimbursed by DOJ, he said. Richardson said his office is also looking to receive a DOJ grant to help him buy new radios for use throughout the county by all law enforcement officers.

This will replace our radios, he said, which are 10-12 years old. “Every law enforcement officer in Marion County will get new radios, code enforcement as well,” Richardson said. The radios will cost $468,000.

The department has applied for a COPs grant, and the prospects look good that the county will be getting almost $350,000, he said, to purchase four officers. The grant is for three years, he explained and during the fourth year, the county will have to pick up the tab for the new officers. The grant will pay for salaries and benefits, but no equipment, he said. To get the grant, the county has to agree to fund the four officers for the fourth year.

We know the county is in bad shape now, but we think the county will be better off in four years, Richardson said, so we applied for it.

A final grant that the Sheriff’s office reportedly will receive is $500,000 through U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn’s efforts and will specifically go to help fight drugs and gangs in the county through a multi-jurisdiction unit. This grant, Richardson said, will have to include other law enforcement officers in the county.

I’ll get with the chiefs, he said, and each agency will have to hire a person to work as a gang and drug officer to be on the task force. We may change the name of the county’s multi-jurisdictional drug task force to gangs and drug task force, he said, to accommodate the grant.

Richardson said the plan is to “saturate, patrol, move these gangs on or arrest them and put them in jail.” This money, he said, has to be spent within one year and each department that hires someone new will have to be able to continue paying for the position created.

“These are just some of the plans we wanted to make you aware of,” Richardson said. Council members asked that Richardson return quarterly to give such updates. Richardson said he needed to speak with the other law enforcement departments before a meeting during the second week in June about the multi-jurisdictional money.

Council member Tom Shaw asked the Sheriff how things are going in the Southern part of the county.

Richardson said that in January, there were 80 break-ins in 30 days in county and that the department had made six to eight arrests in those cases. He added that there have been a few break-ins recently as if “It’s starting to pick back up…” Richardson during January, there were several larcenies of catalytic converters and copper wiring, but that had died out.

Shaw asked if his company was still on the wrecker rotation in the county being dispatched as needed by Central Dispatch. Richardson said the rotation for wrecker service had not changed and that sometimes a wrecker service is dispatched at the vehicle owner’s request.

Richardson added that he has hired “a guy from Mullins who works with the drug unit … he does what he does and writes the grants,” he explained. The grants and drug forfeiture money coming into the county or which could come into the county is about $1.5 million, County Council Chairman John Q. Atkinson remarked.

Editor’s Note: This article previously reported, in error, that it had been five years since the Sheriff had requested new vehicles for his department. We regret the error. It has been two budget years.