Sheriff Ennis Wright and sheriff candidate Charlie Baxley touted their experience and lifelong ties to Cumberland County as they faced each other in a candidates forum on Sunday.
Wright, a Democrat, was appointed sheriff after Moose Butler retired mid-term. This is Wright’s first election as he tries to fend off Republican Baxley.
The forum was presented at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6018 on Chance Street by the Fayetteville Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Here are some of the things Wright and Baxley had to say:
School officers
Baxley and Wright differed on whether the Sheriff’s Office should place deputies in the schools to serve as school resource officers.
A school resource officer provides on-campus security, interacts with the students and is someone students can contact if they are victims of crime. Not all the Cumberland County schools have them, but a recent grant of nearly $500,000 should soon allow additional ones to be hired.
“You’re not going to be able to hire 15 to put in there right now. We’re having a hard enough time hiring deputies to do the job” in general. Baxley said.
He said the school system has $26 million to $28 million in reserves.
Instead of having the Sheriff’s Office hiring additional deputies specifically for the schools, Baxley said, the school system should use its own money to hire off-duty police officers and sheriff’s deputies as school resource officers.
Officers like to take off-duty gigs to supplement their incomes, Baxley said.
Wright said Baxley’s idea would not work well.
“You…
