Decision 2024: Meet Chris Paul, candidate for Bibb County Sheriff

MONICA- Good Afternoon. Today we are sitting down with Chris Paul who is running for Bibb County Sheriff. First off, thank you for joining us.

CHRIS- Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be here.

MONICA- We are glad to have you here. We want to talk about the upcoming election. I have a few questions for you. First, what do you think is the biggest issue or challenge facing the Sheriff’s Office for the next four years and how do you plan on solving that?

CHRIS- Sure, I think the biggest issue we are facing right now at the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office is moral. And that’s what we’re dealing with now. All the guys working, and not just the guys, the males and females at the Sheriff’s Office, they’re just burned out. Lack of leadership, lack of people on the road, not enough deputies. So, the biggest thing we got to deal with now is moral.

MONICA- Do you have a plan on fixing that moral?

CHRIS- Sure. Whenever we get into law enforcement, we want to go out and we want to enforce the law. We want to go out and do things like pulling people over and making the big drug bust and doing things like that. We want to give them more opportunities in different departments, so they can go out and express what they came into law enforcement to do. And be able to show those skills, and show people “Hey, look! This is what we do in law enforcement”.  Not just writing reports, but actually making the community safer.

MONICA- Now for the next one, we are going to talk about data. What data do you consider most heavily that would indicate we are in a safer community? Or you’re starting to see those results in Macon-Bibb?

CHRIS- Sure, one of the biggest things we use now for the date is the MVP. That is where the Mayor and the community is putting together those numbers saying we are down 42 percent, as far as violent crimes. And just seeing those numbers, that’ll steadily tick down and just using the people in the community saying “look, my community feels safer”. If your community don’t feel safer, if crime is happening to you, then crime is up 100 percent. We just want to talk to communities and see if their communities are safer and then build plans on each community differently. Not every community is the same. They all need different things. I want to make sure that we have a specific plan in place for it, every community.

MONICA-  And that’s the MVP program?

CHRIS- Sure, it’s not an MVP program. It’s going to be a program from the Sheriff’s Office. Something that we did with the old MPD. We went through and made sure neighborhoods had what they needed. And we just talked to community members to see what all they think they needed in the community and tried to address those issues. Put a plan in place and then live up to it.

MONICA- Alright. Now how do you plan on making Macon- Bibb safer if elected? Is it the MVP you were talking about or what are you planning?

CHRIS- It’s going to be a combination of things. A combination of MVPs, some of the initiatives we bring. One of the things I think is missing in Bibb County is the helicopter. One of the things a helicopter can do is assist. Now that we have the amphitheater , we can use it for crime suppression. We can use it for weather. We can also use it for people who have gone missing. We can also use it for EMA. Unfortunately, we have a lot of people who may get drowned over at Amerson park , we can use the helicopter for that. So we need to be thinking of technology moving forward, because time is changing. Law enforcements changing. So we have to be able to change with the times. I think that’s what I bring to the community, I bring to the Sheriff’s race, as the person to be elected for Sheriff of Bibb County.

MONICA-  Why do you think you are the best candidate? There are four candidates running for this position. What makes you the best or most qualified?

CHRIS- Being in Macon-Bibb County, and having a love for Macon-Bibb, and just wanting to serve people. I’m here as a servant. I know we don’t have all the answers, so we need to bring in a lot of people to make Macon-Bibb safe. So just being that serving, being that one to have a vision, and having people to come around and get the vision in place so we can move Bibb forward.

MONICA- I know we had talked about this previously, you are from Macon. This is your home.

CHRIS- Born and raised.

MONICA- Why is this so important to you? That you see Macon-Bibb become safer and why is it more important that you become the next Sheriff?

CHRIS- It’s my slogan , Macon-Bibb Safer. That is the slogan for my campaign, and it’s Macon-Bibb safer. We want to make Macon-Bibb safer. We know the issues that face Macon-Bibb County, it’s been going on for years. So we know the things we need to do. We know it’s time for a leadership change and just having a new fresh face, fresh ideas. And having , not just the community, but the deputies input as well because they got to work here as well. We want to make sure the input they have at the job is going to bring success to the community. So that’s why I’m the best candidate on the job.

MONICA- Thank you for that and thank you for joining us today.

CHRIS- Thank you for having me today.

MONICA- You can find today’s interview or the other interviews with our Bibb County Sheriff candidates on our website, 41nbc.com.

Snippets from all candidates’ interviews will air on 41NBC News at 6 p.m., 11 p.m., DayBreak and 41Today. All interviews will also be posted in full on 41NBC.com on the following days:

Monday, April 15 – David Davis
Tuesday, April 16 – DeAndre Hall
Wednesday, April 17 – Chris Paul
Thursday, April 18 – Chris Patterson

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