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Six months in, Wolff proud of progress as sheriff

Posted June 03, 2015 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler The Herald Tribune

CHESTER -- It's safe to say Shannon Wolff's first six months as Randolph County sheriff have not been dull.

June 1 marked the six-month point of Wolff's first term in office after defeating incumbent Mike Hoelscher in a close race in November.

Since taking office on Dec. 1, Wolff (and his office) has faced a number of challenges - including the beginning of an active shooter training program, new union contracts, drug arrests, a bomb scare at Gwin Apartments and the preparation for the upcoming murder-for-hire trial of Drew Peterson.

"They flew by; it's been really fast," Wolff said of the first six months. "I can't believe it's been six months already. It took so long to get to this point and then have it go by so fast, I think it's went well."

A former deputy sheriff under Hoelscher with 19 years of experience, Wolff highlighted shooter training for school staff as one of his priorities during his election campaign. To date, the sheriff's office has conducted training at four Randolph County schools with more sessions being planned for the coming school year.

"You see the accomplishments like the drug arrests and the active shooter program we've got going," Wolff said. "You see that stuff on the outside, but we've done so much internally that people don't see.

"The internal running of the sheriff's office takes up a lot of my time."

One of those "internal" things is modernizing policy and procedure manuals that haven't been updated since 1999. Wolff said his office had arrest reports from the early 1980s that didn't need to be kept.

"It's just taking up storage space, which we don't have a lot of," Wolff said. "So, we've got that program in place to purge those records and we're slowly, but surely, updating the policy manuals."

In terms of shooter training, one of Wolff's goals in the future is to conduct a drill at the Randolph County Courthouse.

"The schools really took priority to get that done," Wolff said. "(Deputy) Eric (Hamilton) is in Active Shooter training now in Georgia and we plan on getting that scheduled at the courthouse when he gets back."

Wolff said he will be getting his active shooter trainer certification, from Tier One Tactical Solutions, June 15 and 16.

In regard to Peterson, whose trial was recently pushed back to Aug. 31, Wolff said "you never know what's going to happen in your county."

"I would never in a million years would have thought, after taking that training at the sheriff's convention, that a week later, that the state's attorney (Jeremy Walker) would be telling me that Drew Peterson would be in a trial in here," he said. "You have to be ready for so many things. You can't prepare for everything because so many different things can happen."

Wolff said he thinks the Peterson trial could gain more media attention, but isn't sure if it will get the public attention that it did in Will County for Peterson's initial murder trial.

"It's going to get some, because more people know about it now," he said. "The (preliminary hearing), nobody really knew about it, and now, everybody's seen it."

Wolff also talked about the current state of the 41-year-old Randolph County Jail, which is in need of major repairs. In previous statements, Wolff has said it will cost $500,000 to correct faulty jail doors.

"I want the people to know that if we can fix it, and it's a good fiscal move to put the money into it and fix it, that's fine," he said. "I'm not bent on building a new jail if we don't need one. I don't want to spend money just to spend money, but that jail's a huge liability.

"We have to make sure these gates and everything else back there works properly. We don't want an inmate locked in a cell where we can't get him out."

Wolff said he believes the decision to renovate or build anew would be ultimately up to the taxpayers.

"If we decided to go the avenue of building a new jail, (the taxpayers) would vote on it whether or not we did," he said. "If that's what they chose, that's what we would do."

The sheriff's office has made a number of significant drug arrests during the past six months and Wolff said he is working on making it difficult to sell drugs in the county.

"It's non-stop," he said. "You get done with one group, there's another group that comes up. We have to keep after them, keep them on the run and keep them guessing."

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