Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill is a Jack Ass

[WaTcHeR]

Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill

03/17/2006 - March 17, 2006 · A sheriff, angry about an article last year in The Clayton News Daily, dismissed reporters from the paper from a news conference last week , while allowing other reporters to stay.

Earlier in the week, Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill also ordered a News Daily photographer out of a news conference about a state Supreme Court ruling that Hill could not fire his employees without cause, as he did when he first entered office in January 2005, the paper reported.

Hill's dispute with the paper started in August when the paper ran an article about him removing plaques in the county courthouse Since then, Hill has declined to answer News Daily reporters' questions or return their calls.

"Generally speaking, a public official cannot retaliate against a newspaper or TV station based on editorial content if the retaliation essentially cuts off the newspaper or station from access to news that the public official gives to other media," said David Hudson, general counsel of the Georgia Press Association.

The newspaper has sent a letter of protest to the sheriff, but he continues to discriminate against them, Hudson said. He does not know if the paper plans to take legal action.

[WaTcHeR]

January 16, 2005 - JONESBORO, Ga. - When a spate of black officials were sworn into office in Clayton County, it was supposed to be a sign of progress for the historically white, rural county that was the setting for Gone With the Wind.

Then, one of the new officials made waves hours after taking office.

On Jan. 3, Sheriff Victor Hill called 27 of his employees into a jail holding area, ordered them to hand over their badges and gun, and told them they were fired. They were then escorted out of the building as snipers were perched on the roof.

The sheriff called the move necessary, part of a plan to reorganize a dysfunctional department. Those fired - most of them white - say they were let go because of their race, age or support of Hill's opponents, including the white sheriff he unseated.

The firings have touched off a racially charged uproar.

All but one of the employees returned to work this week following a judge's order that said the firings were probably illegal. But Hill gave them different jobs and said he would try to persuade some of the officers to retire or transfer to other agencies.

Hill disputes any claims that the firings were racially motivated, but he still refuses to say exactly why those 27 employees were fired among the 345 people on his department's payroll.

Of the fired employees, 19 were white, including four of the department's highest-ranking officers. Hill replaced at least four of the white officers with black ones.

"If you take the hype and emotion out of it, everything I've done is within the scope of the law," said Hill.

In Clayton County, race matters. Over the past decade, it has rapidly shifted from mainly white and rural to a popular black suburb. Suddenly blacks became the majority, making up nearly 57 percent of the population. The county elected its first black sheriff, district attorney, solicitor general and commission chairman last year.

"We've gotten a lot of black folks out here, so we want African-Americans to represent us," said resident Nate Ryles, a 31-year-old black barber. "But we don't want the controversy."