Rockdale citizens are NOT receiving adequate, preventive patrols by the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office. This is because so many deputies have quit due to Eric J. Levett’s incompetence and the toxic work environment created by his administration. Deputy retention has become a major problem since the addition of Chief Dale Homes and Captain Ernest Strozier. Criminal activity and 911 calls have been on the rise as of recently. Which is a problem for Eric J. Levett, since several patrol zones are consistently left without a deputy patrolling it, leaving criminals to do as they pleased.
Sources report that Lieutenant Jason Welch and Captain Ernest Strozier devised a plan to reduce the zones from 8 to 6 in an effort to hide the low manpower issue. Their overall intent was to deceive the citizens into believing all the zones are being covered. When in fact, the Sheriff's Office is experiencing serious safety issues in regards to manpower. The lack of manpower is affecting the deputies and citizens of Rockdale County.
Previously, Rockdale County was broken up into 8 individual zones with I-20 being the divider of north and south. Deputies were assigned to one of the eight zones. (One zone=one deputy.) There would also be a supervisor and a post-unit (one on the north and one on the south). A post-unit is a deputy who was not limited to a zone but restricted to either the north or south area of the county. The 8 zone system was very efficient at serving the citizens of Rockdale County. Under the 8 zone system, a deputy's response time was an average of 3 to 4 minutes. Now, under the new 6 zone system, response times are 8 to 10 minutes or higher. This also makes it impossible to conduct business checks and neighborhood checks, leaving Rockdale County citizens less safe. (See below)
Fact: In 2018, 72,941 business checks and neighborhood patrols were done by the month of August. However in 2019, only 40,535 business checks and neighborhood patrols were done by August. That is a 44% drop in patrols of your businesses and neighborhoods. That means 32,406 business checks and neighborhood patrols were not done.
This deceitful practice created bigger patrol zones, which has resulted in higher response times to calls. Certain areas of Rockdale County are being forgotten and not patrolled.
Questions for Eric J. Levett:
1. Why were the patrol zones reduced from 8 to 6?
2. What was the justification to reduce the amount of patrol zones?
3. How many proactive patrols have been performed this year vs. last year?
4. What is the average response time for a deputy responding to a 911 call?
5. Is it a good idea to stretch deputies even further by increasing the size of the zones?
6. How many deputies have quit your department just this year?
See the accompanying maps to find out what zone your house or business is in.
Below is the old 8 zone map and the new 6 zone map.
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