Friday, February 27, 2009

Wakulla County needs your help, governor

OK, I’ve left this alone for a couple days while I’ve been doing other things, so let me see if I have this all straight. Please, please let me know what I have wrong. To recap:

Wakulla County Sheriff David Harvey is out at a country club and drinks alcohol.

He gets into a WCSO-owned vehicle and drives home.

His vehicle crashes into a car parked in a driveway with a mom and her 13-year-old daughter sitting inside the car, waiting to pick someone up.

The sheriff leaves the scene to go home, saying later that – although he didn’t stop to check – he knew there were no injuries.

A state highway patrol trooper comes to the scene after a 911 call from the woman in the parked car.

So does a WCSO deputy, who dismisses the highway patrol officer to take over the “investigation,” which is outside of normal WCSO practice. It’s not unheard of, just not normal for WCSO to conduct a crash investigation.

By now, the sheriff is home and has called WCSO to say he was involved in a crash.

The WCSO does not conduct any sort of testing for drinking or anything else on the sheriff, saying department policies do not apply to the sheriff because he is the sheriff.

The WCSO does not issue a citation for anything for days, by which time the public and the media are fully engaged and raising a stink.

The sheriff asks a longtime colleague, State Attorney Willie Meggs, to investigate. He does and quickly determines that the sheriff left the scene of a crash and says there is evidence that the sheriff was drinking.

The sheriff suspends himself, costing himself $2,000 pay, saying the county can put that toward the deductible on the insurance or use it to fix the vehicle.

Citizens are asking Gov. Charlie Crist to get involved and investigate.

Governor, what are you waiting for?

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