Sheriff Landric Reid said his first year in office — which ended Jan. 1 — has been “bittersweet.” With a quarter of his four-year term behind him, Reid is looking forward to 2016.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Reid said his efforts to expand community policing have succeeded in securing greater trust and cooperation from the community.
“I’ve accomplished all of the things I set out to do, some more than others, some where we accomplished but we’re still working on it,” Reid said. “The concept of community policing has really went well getting the officers to buy into working in zones. For instance, going out and getting involved in community activities and going out to earn trust from the community, and hopefully at the end of the day, they trust us and we trust them. Because that’s the biggest thing, since when you have trust in one another, it helps you to solve crimes and it opens up a dialogue with the community. It helps out everyone, and helps to fight and reduce crime. Any time you have the community communicating with you, that’s always a good thing.”
Reid encourages his officers to participate in a variety of activities, whether its through churches, Toys for Tots, the Anson County Domestic Violence Coalition or the Anson County Partnership for Children. Being seen participating in community projects helps boost community support, he said.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
“It’s very touching, the amount of support I’ve had from the community,” Reid said. “You’re always going to have one or two people who go against something, but the community as a whole has supported me because the sheriff’s office, the deputies and the personnel, are doing a great job out in the community. That’s mostly what I’m hearing, is how good of a job they’re doing, and as long as they’re doing a good job, I’m happy with them, because they’re buying into a community policing concept.”
Reid attributed the support to community policing efforts.
“It’s very important because once we earn the community’s trust,they feel they can call us,” he said. “We had just the other day where a neighbor said he saw someone going into one of his neighbor’s houses. Once we got down there, we actually arrested someone on that. That’s just part of the trust that community policing brings to the sheriff’s office.”
HIS STRUGGLE
The first homicide that happened after Reid took office was the shooting of his own granddaughter, 16-year-old Shaundasia Smith.
“I always say my first year has been bittersweet,” Reid said. “The bitter part is the first homicide that we investigated was my granddaughter’s death, and that was very difficult to get a call like that at 3 a.m. Because being the sheriff, you’re used to people calling about other things. You never would think that would be the call.”
Smith died in March after she was shot while at a sleepover at a friend’s house. The suspect, Roger Lee Rorie Jr., is due to appear in Superior Court on Jan. 19 to face charges of involuntary manslaughter, among other charges.
Reid said that he is still struggling with Smith’s death, but is healing.
“It was the most difficult thing that I’ve been through and continue to go through in my life,” he said. “My wife and I, we had love for our granddaughter, and you’re talking about someone that had big dreams and big goals in life, and to see it come short because someone is being reckless with a gun, that’s hard to deal with. But we rely on our faith in God, our friends and the community.”
The same community that elected him came through again to support him this year after the tragedy.
“The same community that I have promised to do my best as a sheriff for, they have just done their job for me as far as coming to me and comforting me and my wife on what happened,” Reid said. “And also, the Anson County school system and the volleyball team, they all have been there for us and continue to be there for us.”
LITTERING, ANIMAL CRUELTY, ALCOHOL
In recent county commissioners’ meetings, some residents have asked the county to do more to combat littering and animal abuse.
“Animal cruelty is a concern of the sheriff’s office, and we will do whatever to assist Anson County Animal Control, who’s over the animal cruelty and over the animal ordinance that’s set out by the county,” Reid said. “But we will do our part in assisting them in any way we can. There’s calls that we get of vicious dogs. We respond to those immediately. There’s some things that people want us to look into when it comes to animals that we don’t have the right to look into, and then there’s sometimes when people don’t like the type of house that a dog has, but the law says two sides and a roof, so there’s nothing we can do about that.”
Entering a house to check on an animal can be tricky, Reid explained.
“People want us to go in houses and check on animals, and one problem we have with that is, once you go in a house to check on an animal and you see other things, you’re digging into something else, or you’re going into a major problem where you may not have had probable cause to go in in the first place,” Reid said. “We can’t just violate people’s rights by going in their house. If we believe there’s an emergency or something that needs to be done, we’ll do it, but just someone calling saying that they’re not feeding their cat well or something, we can’t just bust the door down for that. And some people kind of expect you to do that, but by law and us having a badge on, we can’t do some of the things that animal control can do because they’re not law enforcement officers.”
Another common citizen complaint is littering.
“Littering on private property is not a sheriff’s issue, although there was a problem on N.C. Highway 109 that the community was complaining that it became a dump ground for people to bring their trash and dump it on their property,” Reid said. “That was just a simple talking with the owner, and he agreed and within a couple days had it cleaned up. There was no problem whatsoever. But littering is something that we’re going to focus on.”
Reid said he would like an officer to focus specifically on littering, as well as a potential ordinance change.
“It’s also something that I would like to see, a sheriff’s deputy where that’s all he does, going and checking on illegal dump sites,” he said. “The ordinance can be changed where, if we find consistent names in that trash, we can either charge them or get them to clean it up. So that’s one other way of doing that. But littering in the county, there’s dump sites where people are dumping tires, for instance, something that will be there forever. Littering is a big problem. If you go up certain roads, you’ll see McDonald’s bags and trash, and it is a problem that people need to be aware of. But it is illegal to throw trash out the window, and it’s also illegal to dump trash on someone else’s property.”
Jeff Boothby, chairman of the Anson County Tourism Development Authority, approached the commissioners in their December meeting to ask them to allow the county to vote on allowing alcohol sales throughout the county. Boothby suggested that, in addition to economic benefits, there may be less littering, as those going out of town for alcohol would be less tempted to toss their empty containers on the road. Boothby also said he doesn’t feel it would cause a problem with drinking and driving or public drunkenness.
Reid said that while he won’t voice an opinion on it, he can see the benefits, and said that some places illegally serve alcohol now.
“As long as it’s done legal, I don’t have a problem with it,” he said. “What’s happening is that people are going outside of the county, buying these things and bringing them back into the county. If we had it in the county, it would help as far as keeping people in the county. They would go buy alcohol, buy other things, gas, because a lot times when they for, for instance, to South Carolina for anything, they’re going to fill up their tank down there because gas is cheaper. But if we keep them here, they’re going to buy gas here. I’m not for or against it. It’s just whatever the law says, that’s what I’ll enforce.”
GUNS
“I believe that every citizen that qualifies should have guns, and not just guns, but concealed,” Reid said.
Armed citizens are safer citizens, he said.
“I believe that if citizens have guns, they’ll be better able to protect themselves,” he said. “I think if some of the bad people, the criminals, believe that some of these citizens have guns, they won’t go do home invasions or try to rob them or bother them. I believe the more guns we have that our legal citizens have is better off for law enforcement.”
Those who hold guns unlawfully will be punished. “But we will seek out the bad people that shouldn’t have guns, because maybe they have a felony or things on their record,” Reid said. “We will seek them out and charge them according to the law.”
While he admitted that it may not be the most popular view in a society examining gun control measures, Reid said it is right.
“It’s not popular, but the push for gun control is, in my opinion, a push to get it out of the bad people’s hands,” he said. “I think if you’re legal, you’re legal, and there’s nothing anybody can do about that. I think anybody can go out and do anything at any time. I think there’s more murders from people that shouldn’t have guns, street gangs and drug dealers and things like that, than a citizen that has a gun.”
Even good citizens can go bad, so Reid doesn’t support tighter gun measures, just stricter penalties.
“A person can be just as normal as you and I right now, and in five years something happens in their life, and they go on some kind of shooting spree or whatever,” Reid said. “And a lot of the time you see they legally got a gun. And you can’t go inside a person’s head and see what’s going to happen five years or two years from now. But I think the gun laws are good laws, I just think some of the laws against criminals need to be tougher.”
Reid encourages qualifying citizens, especially women, to get a gun. His own wife is about to take a concealed carry class.
“I do want it to be known that anybody the Constitution covers that can legally get a gun, I have no problem with that whatsoever,” Reid said. “I encourage people all the time to go get a weapon.”
Any qualifying citizen seeking information about a gun permit or concealed carry permit can speak to Reid.
NEXT YEAR
Reid said that while his staff has fought drug crime, he wishes they had done even more this year.
“This coming year, with the help of surrounding counties and outside agencies, we will do more to fight certain drugs in the community and try to reduce them and make people feel safe at home,” he said.
Anson has more drugs than Reid previously thought.
“Drugs are a bigger problem than I ever thought they were,” he said. “I knew drugs were a problem when I was running, but I didn’t know how bad they were until I became sheriff.”
His office has worked on meth for the last year, but he said there are other drugs that he wants to focus on.
“Basically, anybody that’s reading your article, if they know anyone selling drugs, this is the only warning they’ll get on it,” Reid said. “Because we’re going to work drugs really, really hard in 2016.”
Reid said he plans to also focus on breaking and entering prevention, which he believes is related to the drug problem.
“A lot of people are breaking and entering to get things to sell real quick so they can go buy drugs, so we’re going to work on it as a group,” he said.
Agency partnerships will be key to reduce drugs, Reid said.
“We’re limited by personnel, but we’ve already had commitments from agencies, both on the local, state and federal level, that’s going to come in and help us do drug operation stings,” he said. “That way, hopefully we can get some that will go into a federal system, because that system gives them more time. I think some need more time than others. We’re not just looking to get the little street-level seller, we want the big person, the one that’s bringing it into the county and distributing it in the county. There’s several areas that we’ve already put as a target that we’re going to work on, and work on really hard.”
Anson County ranked fourth in the state in meth lab busts this fall, according to a report released by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. While much meth is produced here, several drugs are being brought in from other counties.
“That’s what we really want to work on, is the bigger drugs,” Reid said. “And the street-level guys, we’ll get them, too. But if you keep it out of their hands, they don’t have nothing to sell. And the ones that’s bringing it into the county, you’ll never see them on the corner selling it.”
Reid also wants to focus more on domestic violence next year. He is a member of the Anson County Domestic Violence Coalition’s board of directors.
“We work very close with Karen Baucom and the domestic violence coalition,” he said. “But that’s one thing we want to get really serious about because a lot of the time it leads to maybe a young lady or whoever being murdered, which has happened here in this county too many times.”
It’s not enough to arrest suspects, he said. The number of cases needs to be reduced.
“Prevention is basically through education of the victim,” Reid said. “Let them know that it only escalates. It starts verbal, and it works its way up to a hands-on, and it eventually could work its way up to murder. Education is the biggest thing with trying to prevent it.”
Reid said he has given his personal number to abuse victims so they can reach him immediately if they have a problem.
Courtroom security is also a concern of Reid’s. His office already has an X-ray machine, but needs to get it certified.
His vision is to increase the current security, which only includes security guards with a metal detector deeper within the building on days court is in session. Reid wants to put an X-ray machine and metal detector at the door of the courthouse any time the offices are open, and to put deputies at the door.
Reid said he also wants to increase the number of officers in the county and to increase the pay for officers.
“That’s the only way we’re going to get more officers,” he said. “We’ve had openings since I came in office. Most of the officers are going to, say, Marshville, where starting pay is $41,000 compared to $30,000 here. So officers are going to places where they can make more money, and that’s basically what you do, is go where you can advance more and make more money.”
Reid said he understands the county’s financial dilemma.
“It’s not a county commissioners’ problem, I think it’s more of we need more industry so we can have more taxes in the county and hire more people,” Reid said. “But they can only do what’s there. They can’t make money. I will say this, the county commissioners are working with the sheriff’s office very well. They’re helping us out. We’re getting new cars and new uniforms, and the security situation they’re helping us out on.”
Reid also credited Chief Deputy Scott Howell for his work in helping the office run smoothly.
Reach reporter Imari Scarbrough at 704-994-5471 and follow her on Twitter @ImariScarbrough.
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