Gilmer County Sheriff Stacy Nicholson started a Crime Suppression Unit as a stopgap measure. It has become indispensable.
“They have been more productive than what I even anticipated,” he said.
Created in June 2019 by taking one deputy from each department of court services, criminal investigation and the patrol division, the three uniformed deputies were assigned to the detective’s office.
Since the inception, the unit has seized 5 pounds of meth on combined cases and aided in another 9 pounds being seized by other jurisdictions, seized $11,000, recovered three stolen vehicles, seized 35 weapons and made or assisted in 58 arrests, most of which were felony.
Nicholson said he saw the need as the Zell Miller Mountain Parkway Drug Task Force was being dissolved. Gilmer will be joining the Appalachian Drug Task Force, but it takes time to get it up and running.
In the meantime, road deputies are responding to calls, and detectives are working their caseloads, but there were things in the middle falling through the cracks.
The new unit was designed to catch these issues.
“I just saw the need,” Nicholson said.
But, the department didn’t have the funding. So, Nicholson said he bit the bullet and pulled the deputies from the three offices.
“It didn’t cost any extra money,” he said.
Initially he just called them “problem-solvers” when he put the unit together, he said. Their job description allows them to deal with things which patrol deputies or detectives don’t have the time or ability to address.
“They do know that their designation, them doing what they are doing, is stat driven,” Nicholson said.
“If they are not out there making quality felony cases, then they will be reassigned to where they came from.”
It has not been a problem so far.
“They have been too proactive and too productive to abandon them,” he said.