SUPPORT FOR THE SHERIFF

Last Saturday, I noted here the story of Forrest County, Mississippi Sheriff Billy McGee. He was charged with a misdemeanor county of interfering with, intimidating and impeding a federal officer. The sheriff and deputies commendeered two ice trucks nearly a week after Hurricane Katrina struck the Pine Belt area and had them sent to areas of his county where residents were still not without electricity, water, or ice...and assistance didn't seem to be a major priority with the feds.

Sheriff McGee agreed to a plea deal which would allow him to keep his office and run for reelection as well as have no action taken against his subordinates, but the judge indefinately postposted the scheduled hearing.

He has received a great deal of support locally, and he gets additional kudos today from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, which features his situation in it's editorial:

The Hattiesburg, Miss., American reports that federal court proceedings have been delayed in the case of Forrest County, Miss., Sheriff Billy McGee, accused of commandeering two trucks full of ice last Sept. 4 and diverting them to sweltering folks in his county.

That was six days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. The stunned residents of rural Brooklyn and Petal, Miss., had been without power, water and ice for nearly a week. Sheriff McGee, frustrated with Federal Emergency Management Agency incompetence, told his deputies to escort the ice trucks to where they were needed. When a National Guard captain tried to stop them, the sheriff cited him for interfering with a police officer.

Well, you can't have the law taking the law into the law's own hands, so the feds slapped Sheriff McGee with misdemeanor charges of impeding and intimidating a federal officer. As the American's editorial page noted acidly, "The prosecution of McGee will no doubt help to restore South Mississippi's flagging confidence in the federal government."

The sheriff cut a deal with the prosecutor and was to have entered a guilty plea last week, but someone at higher levels apparently recognized a folk hero in the making, and the judge postponed matters indefinitely. We like Sheriff McGee's chances for re-election, and hereby submit a campaign song:

Katrina left a lot of folks
With nothin' left to lose.
Nothin' ain't worth nothin'
But it's free.
Feelin' good was easy, Lord, when
Billy stole the ice.
Feelin' good was good enough for me,
Good enough for me and Billy McGee.

In case you don't recognize the similarity, sing that to the music of the late Janis Joplin's Me And Bobby McGee.

I happen to be from that area, which is 75-90 miles inland from the Gulf Coast. While my heart breaks for those people who lost homes, jobs, and loved ones, much of the mainstream media seems to have forgotten that damage was done and people were hurt well away from the coastline. Sheriff McGee did what many reasonable local officers would have done, considering the situation at that time. He deserves an apology, and the thanks he has received from the people of his county is really what matters most.

UPDATE Sunday, 05 March: The Hattiesburg American has a great feature piece on Sheriff McGee in today's edition, so you can know the man. Here's someone who has faced worse; he's survived leukemia, including spending six weeks in an isolation tent at M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston after a analogous bone marrow transplant, then considered an experimental treatment.

The story also mentions that U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, Dunn Lampton, has recused himself from the case. I wonder why (heavy sarcasm added)???