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Sheriff endorses Hannah, nixes SimmonsTue, 07/08/2008 - 4:41pm
By: John Munford
Fayette County’s long-time number one lawman has tapped his department’s number two man to succeed him. The winner of the four-man race next week will replace retiring Sheriff Randall Johnson, who Monday endorsed Lt. Colonel Wayne Hannah as his replacement. Johnson has served for 31 years in the top post. Hannah, who is director of the department’s traffic and training division, is facing two other members of the department: Barry Babb, the second in command of the field operations division, which includes the patrol unit, and Thomas Mindar, a specialist who works in the warrants division. The fourth candidate is David Simmons, a retired police officer who served as deputy police chief in the Detroit Police Department and later was chief of public safety for Highland Park, Mich. In his letter endorsing Hannah, Johnson said Hannah “is the single most qualified person to succeed me as sheriff of Fayette County.” “He has the experience we need. He is a person who knows how to build a consensus and get the job done. He is a straight-forward person whose words and actions you can trust,” Johnson wrote. Johnson noted that Hannah was already working for the sheriff’s department when he took office as sheriff nearly 32 years ago. In an interview last week Johnson said he hoped Fayette voters won’t elect Dave Simmons, a retired police executive from Detroit who’s the only one of the four candidates not working for the sheriff’s department. “We don’t need a senior citizen in office, somebody that’s over the hill and has been out of office for 13 years,” Johnson said, adding that Simmons will undoubtedly need more training to get up to speed on laws that have taken effect since he was last a police officer. Johnson criticized the use of “scare tactics” in the election, taking specific umbrage with Simmons’ attempt to portray crime as being on the rise in Fayette County. The truth is, Johnson said, Fayette’s crime is not any worse so far this year than in previous years. According to statistics provided by the sheriff’s office, through June 24 of this year, unincorporated Fayette had 94 burglaries, which if the rate stays the same projects to 195 burglaries for the entire year, compared with 148 for all of last year. The department also lists 189 thefts through that date, which projects to 393 thefts for the rest of the year, compared with 362 for all of 2007. In 2006, the last year from which numbers are available from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, all of Fayette County reported 240 burglaries and 1,317 thefts. Johnson points out that’s still a far cry from the four counties adjoining Fayette, each of whom has numbers at least double Fayette’s numbers. Included in those are Coweta with 645 burglaries and 1,830 thefts; Spalding County with 666 burglaries and 2,118 thefts, Clayton County with 3,317 burglaries and 6,145 thefts and Fulton County with 13,228 burglaries and 34,218 thefts. From 1996 through 2006, all of Fayette County, including the cities, has averaged 222 burglaries and 1,268 thefts a year, according to the statistics provided by the sheriff’s department, which came from data compiled by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. “We’ve always had thugs and thieves,” Johnson said, noting that criminals like to target secluded homes, for instance. “... One burglary is too many. One serious crime is too many. But we have done a pretty good job here, and I think the people like something we’re doing.” For being a part of metro Atlanta, Fayette has avoided having much violent crime, Johnson said. While other agencies are “too busy” to handle violent crime, such cases have to be worked in detail and the criminals brought to justice, Johnson said. Johnson pointed to the recent carjacking of a businessman in downtown Fayetteville. Although it took a three-hour manhunt, deputies were able to arrest one of the perpetrators at the scene, Johnson said. The sheriff’s office had a large number of units at the scene because that’s what it takes, Johnson said. “It took a couple of hours but we worked it and we finally got him,” Johnson said. Simmons has campaigned saying Fayette County has a gang problem, but Johnson contends the sheriff’s department is on top of it, having worked on a committee with other area law enforcement agencies and the school board for several years to stay ahead of any problems. Fayette’s real “gang problem” is from gangs that live in other counties who come here to commit crimes, Johnson said. Johnson, who has clashed with Simmons’ views in a recent letter to the editor, said he took issue with Simmons early in the campaign after learning that Simmons was telling people he had the long-serving sheriff’s support. When Johnson’s friends asked him about it, he corrected them and told them he wasn’t supporting Simmons. “I didn’t want him telling people that I supported him,” Johnson said. Ultimately, the sheriff said, Simmons sent a letter threatening to sue Johnson for slander. Simmons tells the story differently. Simmons said he never told anyone that Johnson was supporting him, and not only that but he heard from several people in the winter that other people were making similar claims. Simmons said the letter to Johnson didn’t threaten a lawsuit, but it said the remarks being spread about him claiming to others that he had Johnson’s support were “libelous and slanderous.” Simmons indicated in the letter that he was aware he wasn’t being endorsed by Johnson, and he asked the sheriff to write him a letter saying those things weren’t said. Simmons contends he never got a reply from Johnson. Johnson said he understands part of the friction between him and Simmons comes from one of Simmons’ supporters, Greg Dunn, who routinely clashed with Johnson during the eight years Dunn served on the Fayette County Commission. Ultimately Johnson used some of his political might to beat Dunn at the polls in 2006, and Dunn is running again this year, opposing incumbent Post 1 Commissioner Robert Horgan. Johnson may have his problems with Dunn, but clearly there’s more behind his dispute with the way Simmons has run his campaign. Johnson says he is speaking out on the campaign because he is truly concerned about Fayette County’s future. Johnson said he’s merely asking voters to “think things over and see if they want to vote for somebody that really doesn’t know anything” about the office. Simmons said he has his suspicions about why Johnson might be nervous about him being elected, but he declined to elaborate on them. Simmons added that if he’s elected, when he takes office he’ll be “looking forward, not backward.” “Randall Johnson is loved in Fayette County,” Simmons said. “I have no plans to burst that bubble.” login to post comments
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