Sunday, February 28, 1999
Sheriff starts from scratch
BY JANE PRENDERGAST datel COVINGTON - There's a story going around the Kenton County Sheriff's Department, one about a car wreck that took place right in front of the sheriff's office. The victims asked for an accident report.
The Cincinnati Enquirer datel COVINGTON - There's a story going around the Kenton County Sheriff's Department, one about a car wreck that took place right in front of the sheriff's office. The victims asked for an accident report.
Call Covington police, the deputies said; we don't do wrecks.
Outsiders have told that story for years, shaking their heads and laughing every time. Now, the insiders are laughing, too. It's funny to them because they swear those days are over.
Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn knew before he took office in January that the job of turning around the department would be daunting. The place had been under fire for a variety of things, including its failure to serve arrest warrants and its cancellation of a second shift. Judges complained about not feeling protected in the hands of deputy bailiffs, some of whom were known to fall asleep in court.
Not to mention that deputies, even though they have countywide jurisdiction and are permitted to handle most any kind of case, did not routinely answer calls, make traffic stops or help other departments.
“We're going to run this place differently now,” the sheriff said. “But we've got a lot of work to do.”
Some other deficiencies he found in the department, which employs 34 people and operates with a $1.8 million budget:
• Guns: The department's entire inventory of shotguns? Two. Most agencies, such as the Boone County Sheriff's Department, have one in every cruiser. That's Sheriff Korzenborn's goal.
• Protective vests: Again, not every deputy has one. For their safety, the sheriff doesn't want to advertise which don't.
• Radios: Even though they spend much of their time in Covington, deputies can't hear all of the Covington department's radio transmissions. That has left deputies without what could be important knowledge, including once when a Covington dispatcher tried to tell a deputy about some violent history at an address to which he was responding. The deputy couldn't hear the transmission. Another deputy drove right through a drug deal because he didn't hear the Covington officers talking about it.
“That's a safety issue for that deputy,” said Ron Washington, chief deputy.
• Uniforms: One night before the sheriff took office, a deputy called with a question: Can I have a coat? The sheriff learned that not all the deputies, even though they had to get out of their cruisers a lot in bad weather, had winter coats. Coats were ordered.
So it's Law Enforcement 101 in the sheriff's office now. Deputies are being sent to training classes to learn things like how to use their batons and when to spray chemical
irritants. The sheriff is writing a policies and procedures manual.
“We're starting from ground zero here,” Deputy Washington said. “But we're going to get it built up.”
Sheriff Korzenborn is a mechanic by trade whose family business in Fort Mitchell dates back to 1934. His campaign opponents criticized him for his lack of law-enforcement experience.
But he realized fixing cars was nothing like fixing a sheriff's department, he said, so he surrounded himself with people who do know policing. People like retired Covington Police Lt. Ray Murphy and Deputy Washington, a veteran of the Florence Police Department. Other former police officers are on board, too, including former Covington Sgt. Jim Tucker, who has investigative experience.
“Just in listening to my radio, you hear them quite a bit more,” said Independence Police Lt. Shawn Butler, a former deputy who left five years ago. “And they sound much more professional. I hope they come a long way.”
Chief Mike Ward of the Crescent Springs Police Department agreed.
He has entered into an unusual partnership with Sheriff Korzenborn. Starting next month, a sheriff's deputy will start going through the Crescent Springs department's training program. Usually reserved for new Crescent Springs recruits, the six-week plan will pair the deputy with a veteran officer who will show him how to do everything from write reports to handle calls and investigations.
The deal gives Crescent Springs an extra body. It gives the sheriff's department — now lacking its own training officer — better-trained deputies. And it spreads the kind of goodwill that hasn't been shared in a while between the sheriff's department and any other law enforcement agency.
“Now we'll know that they're trained,” Chief Ward said. “So I'll have no problem letting them take a call in my city. No problem at all.”
After two months in office and a lot of discoveries, Deputy Washington thought he pretty much knew the extent of the trouble. But the Crescent Springs department held one more lesson.
Deputy Washington and Chief Ward were talking about a computer system the chief deputy spotted in the office. He thought its capability for making identification cards might help the sheriff's department keep track of sexual offenders, now required by the state's Megan's Law.
Chief Ward just laughed. The computer belongs to the sheriff's department.
“We didn't even know what equipment was ours,” Deputy Washington said. “We didn't even know that existed, and it's something we can really use.”
He took it back.
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