BC Sheriff provides update to community members

Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis has been in office just over four months. That’s about 115 days of service thus far for the newly elected lawman. Eager to make good on his campaign promises, Lewis has worked diligently to target problems within the department and take criminals off the streets.

“We hit the ground running,” said Lewis, who addressed a group of community members at a neighborhood gathering in Beresford Creek Landing off Clements Ferry Road last week. “We made a lot of changes my first weeks in office. There were some things I had to do to make the office get where it needed to be.”

First on his to-do list - develop a plan to restructure and reorganize the department, beginning with staff cuts.

“A couple of weeks before I took office we had some folks retire, and I fired some people,” Lewis added. “I don’t really like saying that…but it’s the truth. And I promised to always be truthful with you. We had some folks, they could not conform to what I expected. I have very high expectations of our deputies and staff, and I feel like we should always set an example, and be an example to the communities we serve.”

Lewis has also worked to eliminate what he described as “silos” within the Sheriff’s Department, where deputies had one specific job to complete - such as processing civil papers, serving warrants, or transporting prisoners. Now, the department has one entity to command and oversee all of those units, and deputies are cross-trained to be able to work all jobs. Those officers considered excess in certain areas were placed on the road for patrols, allowing Lewis to focus on improving response times.

“We had a 45 minutes to an hour response time,” he said. “I’m here to tell you that in today’s society, that is totally and absolutely unacceptable and I was not standing for it. You pay your taxes, and you require and deserve the quickest professional service.”

Before Lewis took over the department, a “Selective Enforcement Team” patrolled the county, going in to specific areas to target crime and then moving on to another area. What deputies found, however, was that once the SET left, the crime returned. After the department’s restructuring, Lewis took extra officers and formed Community Action Teams (CAT) that serve on an ongoing basis in communities and neighborhoods.

“I don’t have enough of them,” Lewis added. “But it’s a start!”

Sergeant John Riley is the CAT member serving the Cainhoy community.

“He stays in the community,” said Lewis. “He works here every day. His schedule rotates…He attends all functions in the community, and he is an outreach person to the school. He also attends a lot of crime prevention meetings. Anything going on in the community he is part of.”

A continual struggle is finding good, qualified officers to serve as Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department deputies. When Lewis took office in June of 2015, the department had close to 19 patrol positions available. Currently, the Detention Center has 23 openings.

“I’m trying to hire people every day,” said Lewis. “It’s just very hard to find good people, honest people that want to work. We have a process that people have to go through - background checks, polygraph, drug test, psychological test, physical mobility test. Some people say, ‘Why don’t you do away with all of that?’ Can’t do that. We’re looking for the best, the brightest, the most honest and professional people we can afford and that we can pay.”

But as the search for new hires goes on, calls for service continue to rise, added Lewis.

“The calls for service overpower the deputies that we have on nightly basis,” he said. “…Pick a Friday or Saturday night, and the call volume supersedes the amount of deputies that we have to answer them. We have deputies in some areas - Goose Creek and Summerville - and sometimes we have 8 to 10 calls back up all at one time. A supervisor has to pick which call is most important or the one that needs the quickest attention.”

Despite the need for more deputies, Lewis said the department is functioning well and that the changes he has implemented are making a difference. In fact, since taking office in June, Lewis has led three major sweeps in recent months resulting in some 145 arrests for a variety of offenses, including drug possession, outstanding warrants, traffic violations, driving under the influence, and more. Drugs, however, remain his number one priority.

“Drugs are the reason we are having burglaries, having thefts, having violent crimes,” he said. “It all comes back to drugs and money….I told my deputies, I have a zero tolerance for drugs. You have drugs on you, you’re going to jail. I don’t care if the courts can’t handle it. I don’t care if we have to roll mats down on the floor of the jail…that’s not what you need to be concerned about. You want these people arrested, and you want them in jail, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

In addition to targeting crime, there are other areas Lewis is hoping to tackle in the coming months. Among them, opening a newly created visitor’s entrance to the Berkeley County Detention Center that remains closed due to lack of staffing. He’s also established a Community Advisory Board to remain connected to his constituents and to keep lines of communications open about the issues important to them. In addition, a new “Sheriff’s Inmate Work Detail,” set to begin in the next couple of weeks, will allow low-risk inmates to be put to work for the county on jobs ranging from outside maintenance, picking up trash, and painting - all under tight security.

“I decided we needed to have inmates working instead of sitting around in a jail cell,” Lewis said. “…It’s an opportunity for me to do something for the community that may not get done through regular services…I’m excited to see it working.”

After answering questions from community members, Lewis gave out his personal cell phone number (843-729-2418) and asked residents to call if they had any additional concerns.

“I work for you,” he said. “There is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to call me direct if you have an issue or a problem.” In the end, he told his audience how much he appreciated the opportunity to serve them.

“This is my dream job. This is something that I have thought about since I was a young man. It’s very special to me and I am really honored to be your Sheriff. It’s not just a job to me. It’s really a way of life.”

Many residents in the audience expressed concerns about increasing traffic problems on Clements Ferry Road. Berkeley County Councilman Josh Whitley was also in attendance for the meeting and told those gathered that a Town Hall with S.C. Department of Transportation officials, as well as local and state representatives, was in the works. The date, time and location for the session will be announced once details are confirmed.