KERSHAW COUNTY, S.C. — (WLTX) -- Back in November Lee Boan was elected as the new sheriff for Kershaw County. He officially started his new position on January 1st and now has two weeks under his belt.
“I definitely have an invested interest in Kershaw County.”
Sheriff Boan has strong ties to Kershaw, the community he has called home his entire life. His wife, two sons and grandchildren also call Kershaw home.
Boan has 25 years of dedicated service to law enforcement and was ready to hit the ground running with his new role.
“I’ve been in law enforcement my whole career and kind of that belief if you feel you’re the most qualified to step up for that position and you don’t you really can’t call yourself a public servant," Boan said.
Before he ran for Sheriff, Boan was the Assistant Chief for the Camden Police Department. In his first two weeks as Sheriff, Boan has already implemented multiple changes.
“Probably one of the things people noticed first was right at midnight we switched over to steady blue lights which is called cruise lights on top of the cars," Boan said. I promised during my campaign that we would get more guys out on the road and increase our visibility.”
Boan also going back to doing funeral escorts as a free service to the community.
“It’s something they’ve always had and didn’t want to do without. I consider it an honor to do those funeral escorts again and the people really appreciate it, we’ve already started doing it," Boan said.
A uniform change to signify unity within the department will be happening soon, as well as new badges. Boan removed the traffic unit and renamed it ‘CORE’ which stands for community, oriented, residential, enforcement.
“A lot of things that were going on under the previous sheriff will continue to go on the way they are, like I said I do have my changes that I will make, but very minimal," Boan said.
Boan said having a strong moral within the department is essential, but with change he wants to work to ensure the community and deputies have a strong relationship.
The Sheriff said the changes he has implemented so far were the ones he promised the community while on the campaign trail.