Thursday, January 24, 2008

One Good Law!

Finally a bill has been introduced that is guaranteed to help protect the citizens! This bill will fix a problem we have had here in Shelby County since at least 2002. This bill requires that a shurf have some experience in his or her chosen field. Now, that's a novel idea! Think about it, if our shurf had actually been a cop, maybe he wouldn't have taken money from convicts. Maybe he would have known what authority he had to make arrests in all of Shelby County. Maybe he wouldn't have thought we "can't arrest our way out of crime." And he might not even say stupid stuff like, " a taser can be a lethal weapon."

I hope this bill gets passed this year. It is another one of those "common sense" bills.

HB1537 by *Bass. (*SB1744 by *Ketron.)

Sheriffs - Requires any candidate for sheriff to have five or more years experience in law enforcement; existing sheriffs are grandfathered-in. - Amends TCA Title 8.

Fiscal Summary for HB1537 / *SB1744
MINIMAL

Bill Summary for HB1537 / *SB1744

This bill adds to the present law qualifications that are required for election or appointment to the office of sheriff by requiring at least five years' experience as either a member of the state highway patrol or a POST certified law enforcement officer, or comparable certification in another state. The experience requirement added by this bill would not apply to any person who is serving in the office of sheriff on July 1, 2007, for so long as the person's service in the office of sheriff is continuous and uninterrupted.

Updated Info: click to enlarge

link to the source document

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why? should we change after all these years, to a system that a sheriff has to have 5 years of law enforcement. This is not good. The average person will soon be left out of his own government.
Like now! you have to be a licensed attorney to be a judge.

when only law enforcemnet people are entitled to be sheriff, I smell tyranny. No we need to allow anyone that can be elected to be sheriff, judges etc.

John Harvey said...

Let's see. Let me try to follow your logic, or illogic.

1. In order to be a JUDGE, you have to have passed the bar, which means you have been trained in the black art of lawyering.

2. In order to be a cop, you have to have gone through several hundred hours of "law enforcement" training, which includes learning to shoot, learning law, etc.

3. In order to be a doctor, you have to have gone to medical school.

4. I think you can probably see a pattern here.

Anyone can be a sheriff, they just have to fulfill the requirements, and that's what has been a problem. Until now, the requirements for sheriff have been minimal, and didn't require that you actually have done the job, or know what you were talking about.


We don't need some slick politician, who is connected to the good old boy network, and can raise a ton of money, getting elected to the office of high shurf. Mark Luttrell is the poster boy for why this law is needed. He's never been a cop, yet the media legitimizes him by asking him questions, as though he had risen through the ranks.

Mark might be a decent guy, then again, he might not, but either way, he has no credibility in the law enforcement community. He has said and done so many things that a real "cop" would not. Law enforcement leaders need to be able to "walk the walk", not just "talk the talk". As for that, he can't even get the talk part right.

Word on the street is that Mark is planning to run for county mayor, and he has already selected his successor - his bean counter - Harvey Kennedy. I do hope this law passes. We certainly don't need another from the ranks of the uninformed, untried, unprepared in the Sheriff's office.

Anonymous said...

Let me see if I can understand
what your logic is !
In this country, Judges have aways been licensed.
Doctor have aways been licensed.
And peace office when through hundreds of hour of training.
Check the History of this country.
I do see a pattern in Law enforcement and its called a police state.

John Harvey said...

I hate to burst your bubble, but you don't have your facts correct. Judge Kenneth Turner wasn't a lawyer prior to becoming Juvenile Court judge, and may others have served as a judge in the state of Tennessee and other states without having been a lawyer, or attended law school. As a matter of fact, there are still many areas of the US where a person can become a judge, without having first attended law school, and/or having been a lawyer.

I'm adding a reference and a screenshot FYI to this blogpost for your edification. Having people who are qualified, meaning who have done the hard work of gaining the knowledge, skills and abilities through work cannot be supplanted by political powerbrokers.

Anonymous said...

John you were on Mikes show thursday, and talked about 26 million dollar that retun crooks cost the county, do you have that data posted on your site?

John Harvey said...

Well, yes, and no. That figure was an extrapolation on a fraction of those who have been arrested, and using a conservative number of 500.00 per arrest. It is actually a lot higher, because those 52000 people have been arrested multiple times. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to go back and try to calculate the total number of arrests, which would include the times each person has been arrested since 1982.

Anonymous said...

While I don't always agree with your assessments of Mark, I DO think his lack of LE experience has hurt SCSO, and Kennedy would be a disaster. I think an e-mail or two to my state rep will be in order.

John Harvey said...

It's okay to have a different opinion of Mark, but you might want to as ANY deputy who isn't working in a cushy job, or knocking down big bucks(they won't tell you the truth). They will tell you Luttrell is the worst shurf we've ever had, and he has taken money out of the pockets of deputies since he got there. I'm glad I don't work there anymore, and I feel for the officers who are stuck there until they can retire. I run into them every day and they tell me, to a person, they'll be glad when they can retire. I had one today asking me if there was life after the SCSO. I told him, yes, at least for me, there is. I enjoy what I do, and I have faith in the commanders of the MPD. They aren't perfect, but they know what they are doing and they are taking care of business.

As I predicted, in a posting a year ago last September, crime is down (5.5%) this past year, and it will drop even further this year. People are going to be truly amazed once we get the Real Time Crime Center up and running.

Back on the subject at hand, please do support this legislation, we need professionals in law enforcement, not wannabees!