Broke, a sheriff in Appalachian coal country struggles to provide law and order
Before making a wave of cutbacks across his department, Martin County Sheriff John Kirk delivered a grim warning to residents of this hardscrabble Appalachian community.
Law enforcement as we have known for the last four years will not exist, he posted on Facebook last month. WE ARE BROKE
LOCK YOUR DOORS, LOAD YOUR GUNS AND GET YOU A BARKING, BITING DOG. If the Sheriffs office cant protect you, WHO WILL?
In a sense, it was political bluster. When he can, Kirk still patrols this remote former coal mining region on the eastern edge of Kentucky, responding to traffic accidents and break-ins, knocking on the doors of suspected drug dealers, serving papers and transporting prisoners.
But with only one other paid law enforcement officer on staff now to help him monitor a 231-square-mile area day and night, his department is stretched to its limit.
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-kentucky-sheriff-cuts-20190304-story.html
And yet Obama's somehow to blame.
Aristus
(66,388 posts)Don't these people hate the Federal government? Aren't they local-government types?
Why do they want help? Aren't they 'we just want to be left alone' mountain-folk?
I imagine that at one time, their law enforcement organizations received a Federal subsidy that has since vanished with the loss of Federal tax revenue. Why are they voting for anti-tax representatives?
'Regulating our one industry without offering any alternatives'?
Didn't coal miners in the region decline job training and career counseling because Trump promised to bring their coal jobs back?
Is anybody asking them these questions?
get the red out
(13,466 posts)It's always the Government's fault but they HATE THE GOVERNMENT getting involved to help people.
SWBTATTReg
(22,133 posts)Where is rump in all of this? He promised the moon and everything else to these people...