Contrived charges?

The challenge to protect and serve is a heavy load routinely shouldered by underpaid and overworked law enforcement officers. Their work is not for the faint of heart or those with an ambiguous moral code. Their work requires an even-hand, a cool disposition, a keen sense of right and wrong and the capacity for courage under fire. Though few of us actually have what it takes to be a good cop or deputy, most of us know one when we see them.

We think it is therefore likely that the judge presiding over a hearing in Montgomery will dismiss scurrilous accusations and charges alleging civil rights violations against Barbour County’s Chief Deputy Ronnie Benefield and others on the county force.

Benefield, like most in the law enforcement community that are charged with keeping the Barbour and Quitman counties safe, is not only a good cop. He’s a good guy. He and others wearing the badge around here are simply committed to doing the right thing.

They’re after safer roads when they chase down the reckless drivers and write tickets to the speeders. They’re protecting the majority of law-abiding citizens when they stake out the corners, alleys and dirt roads where drugs and stolen property are trafficked. They’re securing our communities when they respond to the domestic disputes that begin as heated words and then evolve into violent assaults.

All too often the dangerous work that is law enforcement is answered with wild allegations of misconduct and lawsuits against those sworn to protect and serve. That appears to be the case this time. We hear that the truth of this episode was captured for posterity by a dashboard mounted video camera that recorded the incident. This evidence, says Sheriff Leroy Upshaw, will exonerate Deputy Benefield and prove the allegations of undue force and racism were malicious attacks on the deputy’s character and good name. Knowing Ronnie Benefield, we expect that he’ll be cleared.

Sheriff Upshaw once played for us a dash cam recording of an incident where citizens pressed serious charges against another deputy. The video recording proved those claims were bogus. Big time bogus!

In that recording we saw a guy who’s been pulled over near the heart of the 431 business community in Eufaula. In quick order this guy bolts from the deputy, jumps back in his car and proceeds to flee and elude like crazy. This fool takes off at full speed burning rubber and whipping through traffic heading north into the historic district at full throttle.

The law is in hot pursuit with their dash camera rolling on this guy’s run. It might have ended in a crash anywhere along the route as the offender flew over the tracks and through the lights at the intersection of Barbour Street and Eufaula Avenue. He mashed it for another block and then took a real hard right on to Broad Street were he goes pedal to the metal again.

He’s in both lanes first east and then West bound Broad Street. He’s screaming through town and pulling away from the deputy on his tail. He hangs another right blows down the side street and then into the intersection where he drives over the median on Barbour Avenue and races toward the bridge. From there it’s a high speed chase into Georgia.

That video was stark and gritty. It made our pulse pound, It was clear evidence that law enforcement, even in our relatively safe community, is sometimes an adrenaline-charged activity that only criminals and those we trust with confronting them are willing to take part in.
n We were scared for and proud of that deputy. He earned our respect and opened our eyes.

n We hope the judge hearing Benefield’s case can draw a similar conclusion.

n We hope he can toss these charges and let a valuable public servant get back to work.

n We need Deputy Benefield and all the others who risk their good name and personal safety for ours.

God bless them all.
-ET