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

MONICA- Good Afternoon. Today we are sitting down with Chris Patterson, who is running for Bibb County Sheriff. First off, thank you for being here today.

CHRIS- It’s my pleasure and good morning.

MONICA- It’s really nice to have you here. We have a lot to look forward to, elections are coming up. I have a few questions for you. First off, what do you think is the biggest issue or challenge that’s facing the Sheriff’s office over the next four year? And how do you plan to solve it?

CHRIS- To me, the biggest issue is staffing. The Sheriff has…When we consolidated the city police department with the Bibb-County Sheriff’s Office, we had 600 full time mandated officers. We’re down to less than 225 full time mandated officers. Now the Sheriff has hired about 50 part time people. We need to get full time, mandated officers, people who are invested in the Bibb County. The part time people are not invested, they’re here for the money. We need to staff the patrol division. We need to staff the corrections division. As you well know, we made national news with an escape of four inmates, one being a murder suspect. We also made the news because we had the jail broken into three times. We have all the technology we have at that jail. The jail is fine the way it is, the only thing wrong with the jail is the administrators that are running it. With fixing staffing, I wanna make Bibb County the highest paid department in the region. I want to compete with surrounding smaller counties. There’s no way we should be losing good officers. We just lost 3 training officers who are on the SWAT team to another agency, and that’s over 30 years of experience out the door. And you can not make up 30 years of experience with a part time person. Staffing will help response times. During this campaign, I’ve been talking to the business owners in downtown and the main complaint is when they call for service, it’s anywhere from an hour or the other response is they don’t show up at all. I talked to a gentleman who had his car broken into at nighttime. He called the Sheriff’s Office and it got to around midnight and he said around two hours later he went home. An hour later they called him and they asked him if he wanted a deputy out. That’s not serving your community. You know, I think that staffing the jail will help, staffing the patrol division, getting the manpower we need, boots on the ground. I’m going to be a working Sheriff, who’s going to be with my people and I’m going to make sure people get the service that they deserve.

MONICA- Well thank you for that. Now, how do you plan on making Macon-Bibb safer? Is that the plan, getting more boots on the ground? Do you think that’ll help?

CHRIS- Yes ma’am. Right now they are more of a re-active department, instead of a proactive department. We need to work on 911 dispatchers. We have to work on training. There’s a lot of training I want for them to have. Especially a lot of mental health issues in this town. I want to go out in the community and try to work together with them. We gotta get their trust back. The Sheriff’s Office does not have the communities trust.

MONICA- Alright. Now lastly, why do you think you are the best candidate for Bibb County Sheriff?

CHRIS- I have been with the department for 32 years. I owe a lot to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office. I started off in corrections as the jailer, then I went to patrol. I went from patrol to lieutenant , to a captain. I was a captain  in the jail. I was a captain over the patrol division and I was captain over the court house security. I have the experience. Experience is going to be critical for moving Bibb County into the next decade and this is the election that’s going to make the difference in Bibb County. We have a Mayor that works well with the County commissioners. They’re getting tourism back in Bibb County and businesses are looking to coming to Bibb County, and the first thing they look at is crime. Right now, if you ask anybody about Bibb County, what’s the first thing they think about of Bibb County, they’re going to say high crime, the Allman Brothers or Little Richard. And I don’t want crime to be in that. We are too good of a town to have crime be the first thing people think of .

MONICA- Alright well , thank you for that. Now, to find out more information about the upcoming May election, you can go to 41NBC.com. Thank you so much for joining us.

CHRIS- Thank you for asking me, my pleasure.

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

Follow Monica Diaz-Meek on Facebook and Twitter.