Staff Writer
Thursday, October 7, 2010
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| Marc Benson |
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| Ed McMahon |
Ed McMahon joined the sheriff’s office in 1991 after serving with the Vermont State Police. He was named the department’s Officer of the Year in 1998 and rose through the ranks to chief deputy in 2007. He was appointed sheriff by county commissioners in 2009 after the resignation of Sheriff Sid Causey.
Marc Benson became an auxiliary patrol officer in Wrightsville Beach in 1980. He became a sheriff’s deputy in 1983, and rose to assistant division commander for the detective division. He was named Officer of the Year in 1996 by the Fraternal Order of
Police for his work in convicting the murderers of Danny Pence, who was kidnapped from Wrightsville Beach and beaten to death in Durham in 1995.
Benson said his 1997 departure from the sheriff’s department was the result of a political decision by then-Sheriff Joe McQueen. According to county attorney Wanda Copley, McQueen terminated Benson, but in 2002, as part of the settlement of a lawsuit, Benson’s departure status was officially changed to reflect a resignation.
Since leaving the sheriff’s office, Benson has worked as an investigator for the New Hanover Health Network and as a Pender County deputy sheriff. He now runs a private detection agency and also has a weekly talk show, "Blue Line Radio," on Big Talker FM.
Benson said that if he were elected, he’d continue with the radio show to keep open communications with citizens. However, he would close his private investigation agency.
McMahon said being sheriff is a nonstop learning process. As chief deputy, he was in charge of day-to-day operations, but now answers to the county commissioners for his $34 million budget. He said he had saved money in small ways, like consolidating equipment orders, and large ways, like reducing the number of supervisors through attrition and reorganization. The sheriff oversees almost 400 full-time officers, about 100 more part-timers, and has responsibility for a jail that averages 550 inmates per day.
McMahon reinstated promotional testing for sergeants and lieutenants and started new programs including a citizens’ academy and the Gang Resistance Education and Training program for middle-schoolers. If elected, McMahon said, he’d expand on what he’d been doing. He’d work to keep empowering citizens and encourage senior staff to be better leaders and look for more ways to protect the community.
Leadership is also important to Benson, who said McMahon wasn’t the leader the county needed. Benson hoped to lead the sheriff’s office because he has a passion for law enforcement, and in morale, administration and management, there he said, "I see nothing but problems." He added that the office could be run more cheaply and efficiently with less senior staff and better accountability.
Benson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff in1998 and 2002. He said he lost by just three percent in 2002 and more people might vote for him now over issues like spending money on helicopters and officers killing an unarmed college student in 2006. That was when Causey was sheriff, but Benson claimed McMahon was part of the same regime, which was connected back through Sheriff Joseph Lanier to McQueen.
Benson cited the Charles Smith situation as an example of McMahon’s poor judgment, saying that the sheriff suspended the former public information officer, demoted him, transferred him to jail duties, and in the midst of that, recommended him for a county information technology job.
McMahon said he had received a criminal complaint from another county on Smith and asked the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) to investigate. After several weeks, he stated, an SBI agent said the complaint would be unsubstantiated, with no charges coming from it and just a few loose ends to tie up. The sheriff’s Internal Affairs division then investigated and found conduct unbecoming to an officer, so McMahon demoted Smith.
McMahon said Smith then asked for a transfer out of law enforcement. The sheriff said he explained the circumstances to county manager Bruce Shell, never having seen the SBI report but believing no charges were coming, and recommended Smith for the reassignment.
Shell explained the situation similarly and said he found an existing opening in information technology for Smith. When the SBI came back with charges after all, Shell said, he was surprised, the sheriff was surprised and Smith was surprised.
Smith was charged with illegally accessing government computers, a felony, but reached an agreement Sept. 30 in Wake County District Court to plead guilty to private use of a public vehicle, a misdemeanor.
McMahon said he didn’t know what he could have done differently, other than waiting even longer for the loose ends before giving a recommendation for the supposedly cleared man. He also said that when mistakes were made, voters needed to judge him by how he reacted and dealt with them.
Benson said he didn’t believe McMahon’s version of events and claimed the sheriff knew every step of the way what SBI was doing.
"I’ve absolutely told you the truth … I will not lie, that’s my commitment to the community," responded McMahon. He also said it would have been just stupid to have recommended Smith if he had known of any possible charges.
On the issue of illegal aliens Benson said the county should sign up for a partnership with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to hold them in the jail, while McMahon said incarcerating illegal aliens would cost the county too much money.
Benson said he’d work for closer relations with other departments, from Wilmington Police Chief Ralph Evangelous to Wrightsville Beach Police Chief John Carey.
"We’re all in it together," Benson said.
McMahon said sheriffs have been cooperating more closely with other enforcement agencies in the county, from stepping up ABC enforcement to meeting with police chiefs to paying about half the cost for deputies who assist Wrightsville Beach during the tourist season.
McMahon and Benson did agree on two points. Both said citizens have a right to record officers performing their duty in public, so the deputy who ordered a man in Wrightsville Beach to quit filming the incident of a tazered streaker was actually in the wrong. Also, both strongly support a ballot amendment that would bar anyone convicted of a felony from serving as a sheriff.
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