COLUMBIA, S.C. — This week, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott addressed some of the requested policing reforms, which have been sparked by protests over the death of George Floyd.
He also answered many questions from reporters about why and if he would implement suggested reforms from protesters.
Specifically, Sheriff Lott was asked if the Department had oversight groups or would implement them.
“We have oversight groups. We've had a citizen advisory council now for 20-something years. We were the only one in the state to have that, we started it right after I got elected Sheriff. So, again, I don't know if these, I'm not going to call them demands people are asking for, really pertain to us. What happened in Minneapolis? That's not Richland County. You know, we shouldn't be held accountable for what a bad person did in Minneapolis. We're different, we're better, we're doing things,” Lott said.
Details on the Richland County Sheriff’s Department Citizen Advisory Board can be found here, including the list of members.
Lott also said what happened to George Floyd when he died in police custody was not police work.
“You don't put a knee on somebody's neck who's already subdued. I mean, that's no-- there's no police tactics in that. Nobody's ever taught to do anything like that. That man was handcuffed, he was under control, there was four cops there. That was totally unnecessary. So, there's-- that wasn't police work. That was not police work,” Lott said.
The Sheriff moved on to other potential criticism, particularly if he would consider allowing outside review of Department incidents.
“No. We've been investigating our own now for about 5 years. The reason why we do that, we're able to get it done a lot quicker and we're able to get the information out. One thing you'll notice is, if we're involved with a critical incident, we don't say 'It's under investigation and we can't discuss it.' You're going to hear from me very quickly and we're going to put body cameras out, we're going to put the information out, we get it out. We don't hold it. So, we've been very successful and the public in Richland County has been very happy with it. We don't get complaints from Richland County citizens that we need to change anything with that,” Lott said.
Sheriff Lott added he was happy to participate in Saturday's peaceful protests.
“We're always open for dialogue. We're always open to talk, we'll talk and work with any groups. Let's come up with a solution to any issues we got. Do it in a very peaceful, positive way,” Lott said.