This is the third part of a four-part series looking at diversity in the SunLight Project coverage area of Dalton, Milledgeville, Moultrie, Tifton, Thomasville, Valdosta, Ga., and Live Oak, Fla.

VALDOSTA — Law-enforcement agencies should look like the communities they serve, Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress said. 

“I would think that would be common sense,” Childress said. “You should be diverse because it makes you stronger.”

Having officers who are able to understand people from as wide a background as possible is nothing but a positive, he said.

Childress said law-enforcement agencies across the nation have problems recruiting minorities and women. He stressed that agencies must look at city or county workforce demographics and compare the police force with the workforce.

Valdosta faces the same challenges as law-enforcement agencies throughout the SunLight Project area — Tifton, Dalton, Milledgeville, Moultrie, Thomasville, and Valdosta, Ga., and Live Oak, Fla.

While the agencies studied for this report do have minority representation — i.e., non-white — most are lagging behind county and city population numbers.

The majority of law-enforcement agencies interviewed by the SunLight Project team said they see a lack of diversity as a detriment and are taking steps to actively recruit and retain a more diverse workforce.

The Numbers

Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office has 227 employees; 149 are white, 75 are black and one is Hispanic/Latino.

While the sheriff is white, two of the six captains are black and four are white. None are female.

Of the 227 LCSO employees, 67 are female.

The Valdosta Police Department has a total of 149 sworn officers; 117 are white, 27 are black and five are Hispanic/Latino. Of the non-sworn officers, 22 are white and 19 are black.

Sworn officers or mandated employees take an oath to support the Constitution, their state and the laws of the jurisdiction in which they work, and are authorized to make arrests and carry firearms. Non-sworn officers or non-mandated employees do not take an oath and have limited to no legal powers.

There are seven minorities with supervisor positions, including one deputy chief.

VPD has 27 sworn female officers and 30 non-sworn officers. There are nine females with supervisor positions, including three deputy chiefs.

The Tifton Police Department has a total of 49 employees, five are black and three are Hispanic/Latino.

There are 13 total leadership positions, two are held by black officers.

The Whitfield Sheriff’s Office has a total of 60 mandated employees; 57 are white, one is black and two are Hispanic/Latino. Two are female.

There are 32 mandated white supervisors and two mandated Hispanic/Latino supervisors. There are also five non-mandated white supervisors. There are seven total females in supervisor positions at WCSO.

At the Whitfield County Correctional Center, there are 27 white employees, one black and four Hispanic/Latino.

Five of the employees are female.

The Moultrie Police Department is authorized for staffing of about 46 sworn officers and five civilian positions.

Currently, patrol-officer ranks are 49 percent black, 49 percent white and 2 percent Latino/Hispanic officers.

Police Chief Sean Ladson is white. Assistant Police Chief Tonero Bender is black. Chief Emeritus Frank Lang, whose office is involved in a community-policing initiative and who served as department chief for 14 years previously, is black.

Among upper management in road patrol positions, there are two black and two white corporals; two white sergeants and one black; one each white and Hispanic first sergeants; two white and two black lieutenants.

In senior office administration, there is one each white, black, and Hispanic officers.

Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office has a total of 53 sworn officers with arrest powers. Seven are black and three are Hispanic/Latino.

Sworn officers without arrest powers total 35, with 13 being black and two Hispanic/Latino.

Additionally, CCSO has three clerical employees, all white.

Specific numbers for Milledgeville Police Department were not available, the department reports it does employ several black and Hispanic/Latino officers. Out of 59 sworn officers and 32 jail employees, the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office employs 47 white, 43 black, and one Hispanic/Latino officers.

Baldwin County’s Sheriff’s Office, which serves a county split roughly halfway between white and African-Americans, largely reflects the racial diversity of Baldwin County.

By contrast, the Dublin Police Department, which serves a city with slightly more black people than white, has 40 white officers compared to 19 black and 1 Hispanic. A records request for the racial makeup of the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office was not returned.

Thomasville Police Department, with 57 sworn officers, has 18 officers in command leadership positions — 11 white men, four black men and three white females.

The black assistant police chief is at the top of executive management.

The criminal investigations division commander is black and also in an executive-management position.

Of the agency’s nine detectives, including the black commander, six are white males and two are white females.

The agency is 54 percent black, 43 percent white, 2 percent Hispanic and 1 percent other.

The racial makeup of the Thomas County Sheriff’s Office is “almost an even split” of black and white employees, said Capt. Steven Jones, sheriff’s office public information officer.

Among the six key leadership positions, two are black and the remaining four are white.

There are two black investigators. The Thomas County narcotics division employs a black drug agent, along with a female agent.

There are also two female road-patrol officers.

Of the three school-resource officers, one is black and another is Hispanic.

“So they’re the most diversified unit,” Jones said.

The Thomas County Sheriff’s Office has a total of 86 employees.

Cairo Police Department employs 22 sworn officers. The racial makeup of the force includes two females, one Hispanic, one Native American and three blacks.

Of CPD’s five shift commanders, four are white. The sole black woman among shift commanders is also the administrative supervisor.

CPD investigators include one Hispanic and four whites.

Chief Keith Sandefur said the department is 32 percent minorities, including females.

Grady County Sheriff Harry Young said his office is 60 percent black and 40 percent white.

One sworn black male officer works in the Grady County Jail.

The agency has 12 road deputies — six black and six white.

The Grady County Sheriff’s Office investigation unit employs a black male lieutenant, a white female sergeant, a white male chief investigator and two white male investigators at the rank of lieutenant.

The captain over patrol is a white male.

Shift supervisors include a black male lieutenant, a black male sergeant and a white male sergeant.

Recruitment 

One issue with recruiting is when agencies don’t recruit from minority organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress said every time the Valdosta Police Department puts a posting out for a new position, it makes sure the posting goes to the NAACP and other minority organizations.

“We have worked closer than we ever have with these civil-rights organizations and churches, and I think, at least by word of mouth, it’s working,” Childress said.

Childress said he made sure the police department’s recruitment team is comprised of a diverse range of people. The team is three black and three white with two females.

A lack of diversity is a consistent problem, but almost every law-enforcement agency in the SunLight Project area reports making an effort to recruit and retain a diverse workforce.

”I think I’d say, if you’re hiring for the people that can do the best job, and you’re throwing your net out wide enough, I think naturally that’s going to create diversity, whether in (terms of) race or sex,” Moultrie Police Chief Sean Ladson said. “To be a truly effective law-enforcement agency, you’re going to have to have diversity.”

The Dalton Police Department reports it has 82 sworn officers with only four Hispanic officers and no black officers. All of its 20 executive, command and supervisory and command positions are filled by white men.

“Our experience in recruiting minority officers is about the same as other departments that are away from urban areas,” said Jason Parker, former Dalton police chief.

Parker said total applications have been declining.

“Last year, for example, we had, I think, just over a hundred applications. And our hire rate is only about 3 percent of those who do apply,” he said.

He said the department has recently re-instituted the position of recruiting officer, who attends job fairs across the state.

Parker said the department advertises and works to attract both minorities and women to the force.

Whitfield County Sheriff Scott Chitwood agrees; non-urban areas have difficulty attracting minority candidates.

“We participate in every job fair that we know about,” he said. “We take part in every school career day. We do programs at Dalton State College. We reach out to the community the best we can.” 

Generally, he said the minority employees within the sheriff’s department are from the area.

Major Lynnette LaRocque, head of the Support Services Division of the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, which oversees the hiring process for all prospective deputies and jail or administrative employees, agrees.

“We do our best to recruit from different areas, and we also go to tons of job fairs as well,” she said. “I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head, but remembering the physical training exams (for prospective deputies), the past few years have been pretty even.

“We do have an affirmative-action plan that we do our best to follow, and that plan is updated any time a census is done based on the information from our community.”

Internal Perspective

Valdosta Police Department Patrol Cmdr. Bernard Robinson said a person’s background is what defines them. He grew up during segregation, and with that, he formed negative stereotypes of white people.

He joined the VPD in 1987 and experienced a lot of racism, he said. He would hear racial slurs used against him. They wouldn’t say it to his face, but he would hear about it second hand or overhear a conversation.

“That’s not the culture now, and I can say that because I lived it,” Cmdr. Robinson said. “I believe they honestly work hard to hire minorities.”

This has to come from the top, he said. If bad behavior isn’t punished, if it is swept under the rug, it is seen as acceptable behavior. Change has to come from the top down.

“The guy at the top has to draw a line in the sand and say this will not be tolerated,” Cmdr. Robinson said.

Having diversity also brings more acceptance by the community.

“Let’s say there’s a young black male who doesn’t trust the police,” Cmdr. Robinson said. “He says that he doesn’t trust white officers. Sometimes they won’t say it, but they’ll tell me they just don’t trust that guy, but I’ll talk to you.”

Capt. Eric Robinson has been with the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office for 24 years. He took the job as a necessity while he was in college, but it turned out he loved being a deputy, he said. 

He saw law enforcement from a different perspective. When people don’t have any knowledge about law enforcement then what they see on the news or on TV shows is all they know.

“They think they know and understand, but that’s not a true perspective of cops,” Capt. Robinson said. “There are a lot of negatives out there. I would say to people to take the time to come out and see for yourself.”

When he became a cop, Capt. Robinson said the black community gave him flack for it. People called him sell-out, he said, and he constantly had to prove himself. There is more pressure put on him because of his race and the one-sided perspective people have of cops.

He said diversity is more than just white or black. It’s important for an agency to have as wide a range of people as possible to do the job correctly. When Capt. Robinson first started working for LCSO, there were few black deputies. That has been changing, and he credits leadership for making diversity more of a priority.

“I was promoted on my merit not just because they needed to promote someone black,” Capt. Robinson said.

Dominic Ford, a black sergeant in Thomasville Police Department community relations, has worked in gang investigations and as juvenile liaison, DARE officer and school-resource officer.

“I’m also attached to the FBI gang task force,” Ford said.

He said Chief Troy Rich and a former chief encouraged him to apply for the promotional process. 

“I wasn’t ready,” Ford said.

In 2017, he applied for a promotion from senior officer to sergeant and received the promotion.

“At one point, I could almost count black officers on one hand,” said Ford, a Thomasville PD employee for 13 years.

Virginia Williams, chief jailer for Thomas County Sheriff’s Office for 11 years, said as a minority, she has not had difficulty growing in her almost three-decade enforcement career.

Williams said Thomas County Sheriff Carlton Powell looks for the best fit for the job, regardless of race or gender.

“The sheriff looks for the best person to put in a position when it becomes available,” Williams said. “He’s always been fair. And that’s what he looks for, the best people to get the job done.”

The Thomas County Sheriff’s Office, Williams believes, is diverse, also noting Powell allows deputies the opportunity to grow in one’s law-enforcement career.

Jeff Smith, a sheriff’s office road patrol sergeant, also said he has not experienced any difficulty growing in his career.

“Ever since I was a little boy, I always wanted to do it,” Smith said of being in law enforcement.

Like Williams, Smith also believes the Thomas County Sheriff’s Office has diverse demographics.

“Everybody’s real fair here,” he said.

The SunLight Project team of journalists who contributed to this report includes Charles Oliver, Eve Guevara, Jessie Box, Patti Dozier, Alan Mauldin, Thomas Lynn and Will Woolever. Editors are Jim Zachary and Dean Poling. To contact the team, email sunlightproject@gaflnews.com.