SILOAM SPRINGS — Republican candidates for Benton County Sheriff sounded familiar themes during a forum sponsored by the Benton County Farm Bureau on Thursday night.
Incumbent Keith Ferguson, seeking his fifth term as sheriff, pointed to his years of experience while challenger Kelley Cradduck, a Rogers police sergeant on leave of absence, called for a change in leadership.
Cradduck told the crowd Ferguson did not have a system of checks and balances in the jail because a prisoner with a warrant from another judge was prematurely let out of jail recently.
Cradduck also said Ferguson did not keep the public informed on the status of a fugitive from Oklahoma who was the subject of a manhunt near Pea Ridge.
Ferguson fired a deputy who spent less than 20 minutes investigating the report of a sighting of the escapee.
“It’s easy to say youfired your problem away,” Cradduck said of the Pea Ridge incident.
Cradduck also criticized a Sheriff’s Office request for a personal water craft to patrol Beaver Lake to prevent terrorism, likening the request to “asking for a Segway to patrol Lake Atalanta.”
The challenger also went on the attack about gangs, saying Ferguson said in their 2008 race there were no gangs in the county and gangs were a city problem.
“Then, why court the city vote?” Cradduck asked. “Why, all of a sudden, are there gangs he didn’t see before?”
Ferguson said he addressed the gang problems but he runs a jail not a prison. The jail is a holding facility for prisoners staying, usually, no more than 90 days, the sheriff said.
“In 2007, we started documenting every gang member that came into that jail,” Ferguson said.
“A lot of people will just grab a handful of mud and see what sticks. It’s easy to talk about something you know nothing about.”
Ferguson said Cradduck has never been through the jail to see the problems with segregating different types of prisoners by their charged crimes and the problems the segregation causes with overcrowding.
The county is paying for a minimum-security addition to the jail to hold non-violent offenders to free space and Ferguson said he and the county are building it without additional taxes or a bond issue.
Answering the accusations of jail protocol, Ferguson said he has a 209-person staff and house approximately 10,000 prisoners per year.
“Anyone who’d run a department of that size without procedures and protocols would be a fool,” Ferguson said. “Do we make mistakes? Yes.
But we train every day and every month. We have a $15 million budget and that takes a manager ... that takes leadership.”
No one is running as a Democrat, so the May 18 primary will determine the sheriff’s race.
News, Pages 11 on 05/05/2010